The Vampire Remus
by A Denial
Summary: ROMY. We have Remy as a vampire, and we have Rogue as the girl who unwittingly falls in love with him, plus a talented supporting cast (Logan, Jean, Alex,). And, y'know? This story is now COMPLETE. Ooh, and now there's a little peek at what's to come next
1. Meetings

**The Vampire Narratives, Part one: The Vampire Remus.**

**Category:** General/ Romance.

**Rating:** A tentative PG-13. I'm really not sure about this, because it started out as an R-rated fic. Feel free to tell me if it should be R, but please don't report me.

**Disclaimer:** Well, I don't own the X men, and what I've written is not part of ANY canon to the best of my knowledge. If it is revealed sometime in the future that Remy is a vampire, well then you should know that I had no idea and that I came up with this stuff on my own.

I was influenced while reading a story about Remy as a vampire (Italian Pure by Broadway; excellent story), at around the same time as reading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (Also excellent books), which is why I decided to tackle a story on vampires. I should at this point, also give a shout out to my beta-er, Javed Chaudhry ), although what he did was basically just read the story and "Hm. It's good."

**Notes:** I have changed things around a bit from the conventional abilities of a vampire (I mean like they can't turn into bats, etc) I also may have made some changes to characterization and mutant abilities, for tauter storytelling, but I avoided this insofar as I could. The first story (this one) centres on Remy, and of course, Rogue. But I went and I changed everyone's names, just to further separate them from their normal (mutant) selves.

A vampire can have mutant powers if he was a mutant before being bitten, or he could have been a normal human, and then become a vampire without mutant powers. Also, being mutant does in no way mean one WILL become a vampire. They're two entirely separate things. Plus, if you're a vampire, it doesn't mean you can't fall in love.

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Remus Lebeau sat on his bed, ignoring the dying embers in the fireplace, ignoring the way the walls seemed stained with blood in the muted reddish glow, oblivious even to the lightening sky outside his window, a sky soon to be awash with the golden rays of the sun. He was immersed completely in his thoughts, and any casual observer looking at him would have known by the way his irises changed their shade from crimson to deep scarlet to a piercing ruby color that this was no human. In fact, if they were to guess that he was not entirely a mutant either, they would have been right. Aside from his glowing irises, they would have noted the black corneas, which did not change shade like the irises did, but seemed instead to swallow light from around them. The darkness would seem to move, shifting, growing, diminishing and then suddenly flaring up. The casual observer would then note the thick eyebrows, the way the brown hair cascaded carelessly down to the shoulders, and the stubble on the strong jaw and below the thin, cruel mouth and the straight nose, slightly upturned at the end.

Of course, any casual observer would have been blown to pieces before he even got to the castle gates, let alone Remus's room.

The sky had now started to blush a deep pink, indicating that sunrise was incipient. Remus ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach that warned him to leave his room, to flee to the dark safety of his crypt. He was too wrapped up in his thoughts. And besides, Remus didn't move unless he wanted to. His body didn't have a say in the matter.

He was thinking of his creator, Magnus. He let his brain filter the memories until it found the one he was looking for; he hadn't had to recall anything consciously for quite a few centuries now. While his brain was sorting memories, he thought about Magnus. Magnus, who had, when he was human, hated the barbarians who had sacked his little Roman village, and had, after his mutation manifested, hated all humankind. When he had turned into what Remus was now, he had had no one to hate. No one had known about vampires then, so long ago, and so there had been no chance of persecution. That rankled Magnus as he was essentially a visionary, and a visionary needs oppression to grow. He had roamed the world, looking for people who might hunt vampires, and had found none. Along the way, he had made other vampires, never even bothering to teach them how to hunt, never telling them that the sun would turn them to ashes, always surrounded by a black cloud of depression and borderline dementia. He had made a concentrated effort in the late eighteenth century, and succeeded in frightening a few villages out of their collective wits, and attracting the attention of one Bram Stoker, who promptly immortalized him as Count Dracula of Transylvania. But Stoker's work was seen as fiction, and still there was no conflict of the magnitude Magnus had feverishly envisioned. A few decades later he had realized that he had enough power to single-handedly fulfill his vision of a vampire infested world, even without human-vampire conflicts. This had driven him into a horrible dilemma; he knew that he could not sit around doing nothing, and if he were to carry out his plans, he would have nothing to live for. Eventually he had stayed up to watch the sunrise, trying to reverse the magnetic pull of the earth in a final gesture of defiance for the natural course of things. He might have succeeded if he hadn't started at dawn.

Remus finally glanced out the window, a bored expression on his face, and seeming to take no interest in the fact that birds flew across the length of the sky, and the pink near the horizon had turned into a brilliant orange, while his brain feverishly calculated the time it would take to reach the crypt. He irrationally wondered whether he should stay for the sunrise. Maybe he would be like the Immortal Cyclops, and survive it.

He waited another second, realizing he remembered what he had wanted to. He analyzed the memory until he got the information he needed. Then, in movements so fast no human could have possibly seen them, and so fast that his own vision blurred, he sped out his door and down into his personal crypt, just as the sun burst forth from the horizon to start a new day.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

As he had for the past week, Remus sat upon his bed and thought. He ignored the thirst for blood that had been building for a week, and he ignored the fact that his clothes were thrown across the room, and the fact that there was a woman right behind him, throwing herself upon him and making all sorts of noises. Making love did not give nearly as much pleasure as drinking blood.

Idly he remembered his Creation as his brain processed the information he wanted. He had been going to see the Cardinal Essex, a man who claimed he could help him control his strange powers. He had been young then, not caring that a Cardinal of France would have so English a name, and he had hoped with all the folly and earnestness of youth that Essex could stop him from creating explosions. On the way to Essex's palace, Magnus had swept up on him on an empty street and drained him nearly dry. He had then slit his wrist and given Remus the Blood. Vampiric Blood. He had then walked off, albeit a little unsteady from the loss of blood, leaving Remus to figure out what had happened to him, leaving him to fend for himself. Magnus had been very morose at the time, and Remus suspected that Magnus had imprinted that morbidity forever on him, turning him from the happy-go-lucky mortal he had once been into the dark and brooding vampire he was now. That first night had been a shock; he clearly remembered the beggar he had killed and drained, and then the way he had gone into a frenzy in the butcher's shop, sucking the blood out of all the meat joints and the poor old dog as well.

His second shock had come a year later, when he had found a vampire Coven in Paris, complete with a leader, and rituals. Those were the first vampires he had met; aside from the few minutes Magnus had taken to convert him. He had been shocked to see the male vampires were all castrated. A few discreet questions asked of the vampire priest had told him that all male vampires were castrated before Conversion, since otherwise they would have had human impulses, and a child born of union between a vampire and a human would be a sin and an abomination, as well as nearly unstoppable and crazed, like the Insane Cable. Some dysfunction ensured female vampires could not procreate, so children could only be born of a male vampire and a woman. Remus was untouched in that regard; Magnus had been too caught up in his misery to realize Remus needed.. 'fixing.' But, as a parting gift, he had burnt all emotion out of Remus, and Remus found he could not care less about whether he was neutered or not. It was when he realized that it did not matter to him whether he had genitalia or not that his mind began to separate from his conscious thoughts. His mind was still that of the carefree young mortal Remus Lebeau – Remy as his friends had called him. His thoughts were however, much more mature, and completely stripped of emotion, and how he hated it. Often his brain had implanted thoughts of killing Magnus into his consciousness, and had eventually given up in frustration when it realized his consciousness did not care. But during the last hundred years or so, his brain had started taking a more active part in matters. He recalled how he had felt a brief elation when news had reached of Magnus's demise.

Dimly he became aware he was feeling another emotion – anger towards Magnus, anger for leaving him an empty shell. He glanced down to see the wrought iron edge of the bed crushed under his clenched knuckles and glowing cherry red. He glanced back at the girl who was also glowing red, but appeared not to have noticed. She was too caught up in whatever she was doing, still working on his back. He felt no remorse for planting erotic suggestions in her mind; she and her actions were unimportant until he felt like feeding. Remus let the built up kinetic energy seep back into him. As he tried to think of an outlet for the energy, he thought about his powers.

His powers had expanded over time. He could explode objects with a thought. Organic objects like humans and plants could also be combusted from afar, but it took more concentration and more time. His touch was death if he did not concentrate. He had also developed the power to absorb kinetic energy, and transfer it through matter, as he was doing now. That was probably what made him more powerful than other vampires his age. When taking a victim, he would drain the energy in the cells, collapsing the system. In this way he would leave no other fluid in the body, and he would make all the body's blood flow into the main blood system, from where he could drink every last drop. Other vampires could not get at every drop of blood, and they would also take in tiny amounts of urine, mucus and other fluids, which would weaken them slightly in minute amounts, and be poisonous to a vampire in large doses.

The empathy he had was at an almost uncontrollable level. One night he had woken up to the sounds of someone breaking into his casket. When he had opened the casket, two men had fallen upon him, and pressed their necks to his mouth, wanting him to take their blood and their lives.

Remus let the bottled up kinetic energy explode miles above in the atmosphere, turning his thoughts to the kill. He turned to the woman, who seemed to realize for the first time that she was going at it alone. While he automatically took his position and waited for her to mount him, his thoughts were already far away.

The kill was a dozen times more erotic for a vampire than an orgasm is for a human. There was the kind of sheer pleasure in taking life that there was in nothing else. Remus's brain, still human, chafed at the thought of Remus drinking from a man. It regarded the act as being homosexual. Remus the vampire, the one controlling the body, could not care less whether he drank from a man or a woman. He preferred young people though, their flesh being soft and succulent. Babies, however, were the best, although they did not hold too much blood.

He let the woman exhaust herself. She had had her pleasure, and now it was his turn. He let his empathy continue to convince her she was having the best sexual experience of her life while he prepared to drink from her. Just as she screamed, he tore the breast open, watching the heart beat fluctuating rapidly. And then he drank. Just before she died, the woman realized that something was very, very wrong, and she opened her eyes in terror. The last thing she saw were two glowing crimson eyes – the Devil's eyes – surrounded by a blackness that engulfed her, and swallowed her whole.

Remus got off the bed and walked outside. He had found all the information he had needed locked in his memory, and the time for thinking was over. Now was the time for action. He passed a servant vampire in the hall and ordered him to clean the bedroom, kicking him the length of the hall when he did not comply instantly. As the clouds gathered overhead, he walked out of the mansion and into the pervading darkness.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica sat in front of her mirror, carefully applying make-up. She had decided her mascara was too heavy, but needed a second opinion. As she waited for James to come in and tell they were half an hour late so she could ask him, she looked at her face carefully. Her nose was slightly snubbed, but not enough to be noticeable. Her lips were full, though they were really pale, even with generously applied lipstick. Her eyes she thought were her best feature, a mix of dark and magnolia green which many boys had said gave her a hypnotic effect. They certainly helped to divert attention from the horrible white forelock that made her look ten years older. She had through necessity learnt how to cover it up, and she was artfully arranging a butterfly shaped clip with ribbons that framed the right side of her face, when James walked in, without even a cursory knock. That was James alright; he would come in when you were taking a bath, say what he had to say, make a comment on the general flabbiness of your body, and walk out. That was why Jessica was wary of even changing clothes when he was around. She wasn't really sure whether it was more embarrassing to have him see her naked, or to have him make smart mouth comments about her body.

"Jessie, darlin', there's gonna be a couple o' hundred wealthy socialites complainin' up our asses if we don't leave _now_."

"I'm coming, James. A lady must look her best, you know." She stood up, and faced him. "What do you think?"

He barely bothered with a glance at her.

"Mascara's too thick."

"Maybe I should-"

"Maybe you should get your huge hips in the car and on the car seat. I swear, if you eat any more, you're gonna resemble a cow. Now come on. It's a fifteen minute drive."

Jessica smiled as she obediently followed James out the door. They had known each other since they were children, and she knew his comments about her weight were just things he said to hide his affection for her. Short and stocky, at barely five three, James had learnt early on that revealing your true feelings was the easiest way to get laughed at. As far as she knew, she was his only friend. There had been girlfriends, of course; a surprising number considering how wild he looked, and the way he insulted everything whose name he could pronounce, but she knew that she was his only confidante.

As the ride progressed, James told her that he been at the bar, watching the football game. Jessica listened to him, but not too attentively, because she had known him long enough to tell that his important news would be buried later on somewhere deep in the conversation. Sure enough, after a detailed description of various football tactics, and the diverse brands of beer available in bars across the town, he told her he had met a girl. She suppressed her natural curiosity, knowing that he would clam up if she showed the slightest bit of interest in the story, and knowing that only she could answer the only question that really mattered, and that too after she had met and assessed the girl; _'Is she good enough for you?'_

Near the end of the ride, fifteen minutes later, she had gleaned from the chaff he had thrown her that the girl had come to the city for much the same reason that they had; the big fashion convention. Hell, that didn't make much of a difference; half the people in America at the moment had come to see the convention. As was to be expected, James the typical male, hadn't any useful information, like where she lived or had studied; what her interests were, what her family was like; information that could set her up to be a potential match for him. He could of course, tell Jessica her bra size, and her vital statistics, but not too much else. Well, she wasn't going to let James ruin his life by settling with the wrong girl; and therefore she had to assess and check all the girls he associated with. It made her feel like his mother, but she was going to continue doing it for as long as necessary. James, the poor devil, had not a single clue as to she was thinking. His tough man exterior might have cracked a bit if he had had even a slight inkling.

Jessica pulled herself from her reverie as the car pulled up to the scene of the party. She walked inside, looking for a guy for herself, as well as potential matches for James. She smiled confidently; sure that her bottle green strapless evening gown would attract attention. Unfortunately for her, it did attract attention; from one man in particular.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus stepped up to the doors of the museum. He used a careful dose of kinetic energy to break a couple of wires, and shut off the alarms set on the door. Then he pushed the massive mahogany doors with a finger on each doors. They burst from the posts and crashed to the ground. Remus killed the shocked guard at the side of the door with a charged piece of wood; the wood passing through the guards' heart, embedding itself in the wall behind him, and destroying half of it. While Remus the man was feeling a bit stupid for overdoing it, Remus the vampire forced a guard about to trigger the alarm to feel his head was bursting, and kinetically exploded a guard on the other side of the museum. Then, with a speed so fast he seemed to disappear, he went into the Egyptian exhibit, pausing only to drain the screaming guard of his life.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica was dancing with some anonymous blonde guy, when James came up to her.

"Er, Maddie would like t' meet you," he said, trying to sound casual, but not doing too good a job of it. They both knew how important Jessica's opinion was to him.

"Maddie?"

"Jus' come, okay?"

Jessica excused herself from the blonde and hurried behind James. If he had interrupted her dancing, this was serious.

She followed him to where a redhead was waiting, sitting demurely at a table. Her first glance took in the fiery curls, the jade green eyes, the sleeveless blue gown and the Sapphire pendant. Her first impression was that this girl was an amazing person in her own right, but completely wrong for James. She would probably be right for some stick-in-the-mud control freak. Jessica thought this a very odd pairing indeed; she had always thought James would be happy with nothing less than a Neolithic cavewoman, or an Italian girl. Still, here they were, together, and she had to figure out how far James could take this relationship.

She sat down at the table, exchanged the prerequisite pleasantries, noting that James stood off to one side, fidgeting a little, before he finally sat down. 'Maddie's' real name, as it turned out, was Madeline Elaine Grey. She was studying to become a doctor at her parents' behest, though she was much more interested in the modeling job she had. Her passions included tennis, and similar sports.

As the 'interview' progressed, James grew more and more nervous, though he showed none of it; but Jessica had been around him long enough to know what the minute shifts of the eyes and the flexing of the shoulders meant. Eventually, he excused himself, and left for the bathroom.

By the time he returned, nearly half an hour later, Jessica had gotten all relevant details from Madeline, and had found her to have a sweet disposition and a ready wit. Jessica really liked Madeline, but she was still not sure the girl was right for James. Unless, maybe James had changed. She had noticed that he had barely sworn at anything since they had arrived at the party. If nothing else, Madeline would have a calming influence on him if they got together. Even though bar fights and tavern brawls seemed not to leave a mark on James, she would be glad if they finished off. With that thought in mind, she made her decision, said goodbye to Madeline and rose to leave. James caught her arm a few steps from the table, and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

"You have my blessing, child. May God be with you." Jessica said, trying to stop her benevolent smile from becoming a smirk. James smiled at her, something he rarely did, and went back to the table. She saw from the way he moved that a great load had been lifted off his shoulders. She then turned her attention to a group of people lounging near the bar and was about to make her way towards them when someone stopped her.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus walked into the Egyptian section of the museum, removed the sunglasses and leather jacket, and began searching the artifacts present. He paused for a second, skin shining eerily white in the moonlight from years of avoiding the sun. He scanned the museum and surroundings with his vampiric hearing, and, satisfied no one living was nearby, he resumed his search, using kinetic energy to bring relics floating near him, in the same way he had flown across the Atlantic in a few hours. In most cases, however, this was not necessary, as his eyes could see well enough in the dark. Suddenly he paused, actually stepping forward to get a better look.

He peered in the darkness, looking at the strange object he now held in his hand. It was what he had come for. With barely a thought, he burst a hole in the wall, and walked out.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica found herself staring at the chest of a very tall man. She glanced at his face, noting the long blonde hair and the brown eyes. She was stunned momentarily, not knowing what to say.

"May I have this dance?" he asked, in a voice not so much deep as it was husky. Dimly she became aware they were standing very near the dance floor.

"Sh-sure, shugah." She stammered, lapsing back for a second into the southern accent she had tried so hard to erase.

His arms were strong, and his eyes were piercing. With those two plus points, she didn't really pay attention to the way his skin nearly shone in the light, or the fact that he did not seem to have any smell coming from him. He was not de riguer handsome, but he did have a commanding personality, and he seemed nice enough. Therefore, when he suggested they take a walk through the moonlit streets, she had agreed with little reservation.

Things had taken a very unexpected turn from there. Victor had taken her down seemingly random streets, until finally he had taken her into a deserted alley.

While she was wondering why they had stopped in the alley, he turned towards her.

"James is here with you, ain't he?" he said, and she was startled by the way his voice had turned into a coarse rasp, while all suavity had melted from his tongue.

"He is," she said, getting more nervous by the minute.

"Then after I have drained you to a corpse, an' left you outside his house for a few days, I'm gonna rip his little head right off."

Jessica was too startled to react as he leapt on her. As he roughly thrust back her head and bent to her neck, she knew she had no chance of escape.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus was preparing to fly back to Paris when he heard the peculiar sound – a kind of hiss that indicated another vampire. He frowned, knowing that his orders to clear the city of vampires had been carried out. Normally, the two greatest vampire sins- having a child, and killing another vampire- were punishable by death from the sun's rays, but this vampire, having disobeyed the word of an Elder, was fair game.

He let his mind scan the vampire as he flew to the alley where the vampire was. The vampire was only a year or so old, not even a fledgling. During his mortal life he had devoted all his energy to harming another man in various ways, but had not been able to kill him. He had found out about vampires, and eventually convinced them to convert him, just so he could exact a thorough revenge on the man – James Howlett. The vampire's name was Victor, and he was about to drain a young woman of her blood. Little did he know he wouldn't be able to, one way or another.

Remus watched from the rooftop as the vampire bent to take his first drink. He then stiffened as his life-force seemed to be sucked out of him. But he possessed a healing factor augmented by his vampiric powers, and Remus knew he would kill the girl – eventually. Remus wanted that pleasure all for himself. He swept down the wall of the building.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Victor paused in his ecstasy as the dark figure approached him. This was a vampire, and a powerful one. An Elder certainly, and nearly an Ancient. Too late, he remembered the warning that had been sent out, cautioning all vampires to stay away from this city on this night. He had been too caught up in his scheme to kill James's only friend Jessica at the party to recall it earlier, and he knew now that he was doomed. He let the now unconscious girl slump to the floor, and stood up straight, his enhanced healing factor and the fresh blood making sure he was nearly healed.

"You were warned." It was not a question.

"Warned? About what?" Maybe playing dumb would save him.

"You were warned, and you still came." Or maybe not. The other vampire had moved closer. "To hunt where Remus hunted, to infringe his territory."

"I bear you no quarrel," Victor stammered, trying to speak in the old style as the other vampire was. Part of his mind was calculating an escape route while the other part was screaming that there was no escape, and trying to kill itself.

"You are a weak newborn. You are to me as a drop of water is to the sea. Why should I let you live?"

"Please, wise Remus, let me go, I swear I shall never cross paths with you again." Victor pleaded, but he had given up any hope of escape and was tensing his muscles, preparing for a leap to chop the other vampire's head off.

"What sort of life is yours, newborn? Misusing your vampire powers to charm a mortal girl, and for what, the death of a single mortal when the world awaits? It would be my pleasure to extinguish a life as petty as yours."

Suddenly Victor leapt at the other vampire, clawed hands stretched as far as they would go. In mid-air, however, he felt a burning sensation, and looked at his hands to see that they were glowing bright red. He screamed when the explosions came.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica opened her eyes to see a figure bending over her. It took her a moment to remember what had happened before she had passed out. Then she gave a small scream and jerked back, before she realized Victor was not the one who was staring at her. Her first coherent thought was the realization that she was in a room, and not an alleyway. Her second coherent thought was that the man was wearing sunglasses indoors. He smiled at her in a disarming way.

"Eye problem," he apologized, seeming to have read her mind.

"Er, how did I get here?" she asked, in too much shock to be polite and thank him for rescuing her.

"Well, I was just passing by, when I saw a man in an alleyway. When I realized what he was doing, I immediately rushed to your aid."

Jessica realized she could not remember exactly what Victor had done.

"Wh-what was he doing to me?"

He was mugging you, my dear girl. I managed to beat him off with a stick." Though she was not entirely sure those events had occurred, the way he said it made her believe him. She took in her surroundings for the first time, realizing she was in a hotel. The man saw her looking around and smiled shyly.

"I don' exac'ly live in this town, so I had t' rent a room for y'. Y' c'n stay as long as y' want."

"What about you?" Jessica asked, and then wondered what had possessed her to do that. It wasn't like they were close friends. Maybe she just felt safer with him around.

He smiled at the question, and she noticed that his skin was nearly as white as his teeth, and his lips were a very pale pink.

"I have t' get back t' France."

"Ah knew you had a French accent!" Jessica said in triumph. He smiled at that as well.

"An' I see y' have a southern US one, cherie."

"Yeah, well, Ah, I mean _I_ don' really like it, so I try not to use it."

The perplexed look on his face was too cute. "Why, cherie? It's such a nice accen'. Y' should be proud of it."

"Yeah, well, Ah'm a kinda rebellious girl."

"My little Rogue," he said affectionately, and held out his hand to her. She felt like she'd known him all her life, and she wanted to hug him instead of just taking his hand, but she restrained herself.

"Er, no, I can't."

"Can't what, petite? Say goodbye to the man who saved your life?"

She was on her feet before she could stop herself. The damn southern accent was back too.

"What? Ya'll leavin'?

"I have to get back to Paris, cherie, much as I would like t' stay an' get t' know y' better."

"Well, can we meet again?" She cursed herself for sounding like she was coming on to him. "Er, I have to at least offer you dinner for savin' mah life."

"Later, cherie. Right now I have to go. I took de liberty of callin' y'r friend, an' he should be here any minute now."

"Goodbye, er-"

"Remus to those who don't know me well, and Remy to my close friends."

"Well, goodbye, mister Remus."

"Didn' I jus' ask y' t' call me Remy, cherie?"

Jessica laughed, disarmed. Remy stood up and handed her a card. A playing card with a Paris number on it.

"Call me when y' feel de need, petite." He turned to walk to the door.

"Won't you even ask for my number?" Jessica called after him, wondering how stupid it sounded.

"If y' wan' cherie, Remy cert'inly don' mind."

She scribbled her number on a piece of paper. Below it she signed 'Rogue.'

"Rogue, cherie?" was the only thing he said when she gave him the paper.

"That's how I want you to remember me, Remy."

"Den dat's de name dat will be engraved on my heart forever, bien-aime." Before she could respond, he had swept to the door and opened it, nodding briefly at a surprised James who had his hand up to knock.

"Till we meet again, cherie."

James stared at her, confusion clouding his concern. "What happened, darlin'? some guy called me and told me ta come here, that you'd been hurt. Was this the guy?"

Jessica nodded. "I'm fine, James. Except I think I'm in love."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus walked down the building, his brain calculating the hours to sunrise, and his vampire thoughts feeling anger at being cheated of a kill. His brain was growing stronger. After finishing off Victor, he could not bring himself to kill Jessica. Under the influence of his brain he had brought her to the hotel and played the charming lady-killer he had been nearly ten centuries ago. His brain had also resurrected a French accent with remarkable accuracy. Understandably, his vampiric thoughts were quite disturbed about the whole incident.

Remus stood at the side of the river, scanning the area with his vampiric powers to make sure no one was nearby. Then he launched himself forty feet in the air before activating his biokinetic powers of flight. As he soared across the Atlantic with the stolen artefact tucked away safely, he knew that he was going to meet Jessica – Rogue – again, though he did not yet know whether it would be to make love to her, as his human self wanted, or to kill her, as his vampire self wanted.


	2. A Euro Trip

Well, I decided to upload two chapters together, so anyone who's read the first chapter can get a good idea of where it's going. I've put a lot of work and thought into the plot, so reviews will be VERY appreciated. This is not going to stay just a fic about Remy and Rogue, although those two will remain the core. This is a world I've created, and I'm going to make sure you all know all the main players in it. Oh, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a mail. I can't seem to post up an e-mail address here, so you'll have to dig it out of my profile if you want to, though.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

In Paris the next night, Remus made his way through the castle. The castle was one of many scattered across Europe, appearing ruined and desolate on the outside, but comfortably furnished on the inside. It was not situated in Paris per se, but was close enough to refer to its location as being in Paris.

He walked into the deepest part of the castle. This was a place even the servant vampires did not come to clean unless they were sure the person who lived there was away. He was going to meet his coven leader, one of the oldest vampires alive, as far as Remus knew; he was about three thousand, five hundred years old. He was the one who had created Magnus. He was the vampire who had discovered the birth of the Insane Cable, and chained the Immortal Cyclops to a stake and left him in the sun to try and kill him.

Alexander.

His brain suppressed an involuntary shudder at the name. As coven master, Alexander was allowed to kill any one in his coven, if he felt it necessary. Remus the vampire was confident that Alexander would be pleased with the recovery of the artifact; Remus the man, the thief, used to changes of hearts and double-crosses, was not so sure.

Remus stopped before the massive steel gates leading to the inner chamber. He knocked lightly, slightly denting the two inch thick doors.

"Come in, Remus."

He pushed the doors open, and it took most of his considerable strength to get them open as he had to break three or four bolts four inches in diameter, to do so.

Alexander was sitting by his fireplace, sipping from a delicate wine glass filled with blood. Vampire blood. Someone had displeased Alexander.

The vampire who had incurred Alexander's anger was lying on the floor, moaning softly. Remus recognized the bald head, and the wheelchair. The firstborn of Magnus, the peace loving Francis.

He was a joke among vampires, the same way that the Immortal Cyclops was a legend. In the early days of Magnus's quest to find people who hated him, he had made his childhood friend Francis a vampire. Francis had been crippled as a child – some said by Magnus himself, and Magnus had asserted he had converted Francis to heal him. Francis, however, had never killed anyone as a human, and he wasn't going to start just because he was undead now. Therefore, his legs had never healed. In the twenty-five hundred years he had existed, he had never drunk once, except from Magnus when he was Born to Darkness. Consequently, he was weaker than a vampire only a few days old. He survived the years because only the sun or a very strong fire could kill vampires, but it was no secret that he wished to die. The problem was that he was too weak to wheel his chair out in the sun. Remus's brain had often idly wondered how powerful Francis would be if he drunk, since a vampires' power increased noticeably if he drunk after merely a month of starvation. And twenty-five hundred years was a hell of a time to starve.

He stopped thinking consciously when he got near Alexander; he knew Alexander could read his mind without even thinking about it. Alexander looked up as he approached, and nodded, kicking Francis out of the way and motioning for Remus to sit down. His long pale blonde hair accentuated the dark blood drooling from his lips.

"Remus."

"Alexander." Remus replied as he sat down opposite Alexander, his brain making sure he avoided the pool of blood on the floor.

"Francis here was just telling me how he did not want to drink blood. Not a newborn infants' blood, and not mine. I was just explaining to Francis how disrespected I felt when he refused my generosity."

"I brought the artifact." Remus said, wishing to leave the proximity of one of the most volatile vampires living as soon as he could.

"A day late." Alexander said, rising so fast Remus could not see the transition.

"I reached here seconds before dawn."

"Because you wished to save a mortal woman."

"I-"Remus broke off, not wishing that the coven leader discover his schizophrenia. But he was not a coven leader for nothing.

"For five hundred years I have seen you struggle to put to death the man you once were. And, had I been coven leader before that, I would have seen it earlier as well. At first it was merely amusing for me, but now you lose control and let the man take over you." Alexander grabbed Remus by the throat, forcing him to rise. He had crossed the length of the room in the blink of an eye.

"You are not allowed to make mistakes, Remus, not in this coven. Not while I lead." He snarled, normally cerulean eyes flashing a complex myriad of shades the way all vampire eyes did.

"I try to control myself, Alexander. You can read my mind and you know it to be true."

Abruptly Alexander let go of Remus, his eyes softening.

"I know you try to control it, Remus. I wish I could tell you how to kill the human inside you entirely, but such secrets are not known to me. I am sorry for grabbing your neck, but I have always been impulsive." He laughed mirthlessly. "Perhaps that is why I chained Cyclops to the castle gates. I know that is what you think, Remus."

His eyes were hard again.

"But if you are a threat to my coven, I will not hesitate to crush you down, whether the fault is that of Remus the vampire, or of Remus the man."

He laughed then, and clapped Remus's shoulder, and politely motioned for him to sit. Remus the man was mentally gibbering on the floor in terror, knowing that Alexander might have impulsively decided to kill him. Remus the vampire's composure had also cracked a little bit.

"Now come, and tell me of this mysterious artifact you found. How does it fulfill the prophecies?" Alexander asked, his voice mellow, like he had not been shouting a few moments before.

"The prophecies concerning the rise of Nur?" Remus asked, as a time delaying device while he regained his poise. Alexander nodded, his eyes taking on a fanatic gleam.

"Nur. Our creator. The one who will lead our kind to glory!"

In a quiet voice, Remus explained the connection of the mysterious object he had stolen with the prophecies. Alexander's smile grew steadily more deranged as Remus talked on. Eventually he let out a triumphant cackle.

"Excellent, Remus. Though you may not have used your natural talent as a thief, preferring brute strength, you have done your job well. Now we are but a short time away from scourging the planet."

He stood up, indicating that the interview was at an end. Wordlessly Remus handed him the artifact.

"Excellent, Remus. Now, why don't you take a few weeks off from the duties of the coven and find out where you stand. I wouldn't want to exile you needlessly, you know. You have served me well, so don't disappoint me now." He paused for a moment, then said, indicating Francis, "wheel him out when you leave. He's reached the point where he can barely roll his eyes, let alone leave a room." With those words, he left the room.

When Remus wheeled out Francis, the wheelchair bound man looked at him, and, being a telepath, implanted a single word in his head.

'Dangerous.'

He then slumped in his seat, unconscious and weak from blood loss.

"Mon ami," Remus muttered as he reached Francis's room, "Y' don' t'ink I know dat?"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"So, ya think you're in love, but ya dunno why?"

James was not taking the news too seriously. He had been arguing with Jessica for a whole day over it, refusing to believe she could have made up her mind about a man she hardly knew.

"No one can explain love, James. It just happens."

"After all the blonde football jocks ya dated, the ones whose brains were stuffed in their armpits, ya think you're in love with a skinny guy who seems too intelligent to be allowed to live. An' a skinny guy with serious issues at that."

"You hardly got a glimpse of him. What would you- what issues?"

James pointed to his eyes. "These can spot a rabbit from the top of the Empire state. Did you notice he was wearin' sunglasses at 'bout three in the mornin'? If that ain't havin' an issue, I dunno what is."

Jessica pointed to her own eyes. "These might not be good at spotting rabbits, but they can see sunglasses well enough. And for your information, he said it was an eye infection or something that he had. And I think I'm old enough to know when I really like a man. The football jocks were just pastimes."

"Well, if he ever comes again, I'm gonna have a nice long chat with him. Like you did with Maddie."

"Just as long as you don't threaten his life."

"Afraid I'll hurt him, darlin'?"

"Actually, for some reason I'm afraid he'll hurt you. I don't know why I think you'll be the one to get hurt if you two fight."

James hesitated. He seemed to hover for a moment or two on the edge of indecision before taking the plunge.

"Actually, darlin', I got that impression too."

Jessica tried to keep her eyes from popping out.

"You're serious James? Even with your- your-?" She stopped, right on the edge of a subject he had made her swear she would never talk about. James, however, decided to barge right into it, silently releasing her from her agreement.

Snikt.

"Even these couldn't stop him, darlin'." James said, looking at the bone protruding from his hands. Jessica had never seen the claws before, except on that night so long ago when he had made her swear she would never talk about them. And when she had made him swear he would never talk about her power. Now was the time to break that pact as well.

"God help me, if everything goes the way I want it to, you'll be best man at the wedding, instead of a brawler in another fight. But, do you think, do you think he and I could, we could have, you know.."

She paused, her eyes wide open, a deep emerald green. James patiently waited.

"A baby?"

"Darlin'," he began, wondering how to avoid being his usual rude and callous self. Right now Jessica needed words of encouragement. "darlin', I know he has more power than me, an' I'm not bein' egotistical or anythin', but that means he has ta be a mutant. At least, I think that's why he was hidin' his eyes, for that matter."

She was waiting for him to finish speaking, and he knew her belief in finally being able to have a normal life hinged on his next few words.

"Darlin', I don't pretend to know what different powers different mutants have, but I'm pretty sure there's some way to counter yours. God willin', if this is the man yer destined ta be with, then he must have a way ta get close ta you." James paused, hoping his words had the desired effect. With no little surprise, he realized he was staring at the floor. He looked up at Jessica's face, to see her eyes brimming with tears.

"James," she said, hugging him, "that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Or to anyone, darlin'," James said as he returned the hug. "An' I didn' abuse once."

She grinned as she pulled away from him. "Now we can go."

"Go where, darlin'?" James asked as he followed her to her room, where she began taking out clothes from her closet.

"Pack your bags, and pick up 'Maddie', James, we're going to Paris."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus burst from his coffin the next day. It was the first day of his sabbatical, and was going to have a new coffin when he returned. He could go anywhere he wished, but would have to return If Alexander called. His brain was excited, viewing the break Alexander had given him as freedom, while his vampire self knew that he had always been as free as he was now.

He stretched, feeling his bones creak. Suddenly he stiffened. He could hear the touchdown of planes in Paris. He could hear her! She had come to Paris, and he did not have to read her mind to know that it was for him. Suddenly Remus the vampire was reduced to a tiny little fragment of Remus the man, who took over completely. Remus the man cursed the woman he loved for being so foolish as to come to Paris without warning. Paris was home to one of the largest populations of vampires, and if Alexander found out he was there, he would have her killed, so that Remus the vampire may triumph over Remus the man. He would have to guard her.

While Remus the man was making feverish calculations, Remus the vampire was pounding on the door of the cell he had been thrown into, and was screaming to be let out.

Remus jumped straight upwards, from the dungeons of the castle, to the roof, breaking four levels of stone floors in the process with such a strength as he had never known before. He centred on the city of Paris, and flew towards it.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

From a window, Alexander watched Remus fly towards Paris. He knew what Remus was doing, and he laughed at the futility of it. If Alexander wanted to, he could kill the girl from where he stood. Possibly Remus also. Alexander knew only two vampires powerful enough to withstand the heat of the sun, himself and his brother. Killing two or three people anywhere within a hundred miles was easy for him, but he was experiencing a curiosity he hadn't known in twenty-five hundred years. He wanted to know whether Jessica could have a child. He wanted to see if Remus would admit to having his genitalia still. So he would wait. And see. And if Jessica had a child, they would both die, of course. In the mean time, he had more important matters to attend to.

He walked to a table where the artefact Remus had stolen lay. He picked it up, went to Francis's room and grabbed him by an arm, then left for the airport to catch his flight to the Middle East. A new race was emerging to take over the world, and he, Alexander, was going to be the harbinger.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica had come out from the airport with James and a very confused Madeline in tow. She was about to call for a taxi when a low slung silver Mercedes pulled up, and out stepped the man whose face she had seen in her dreams since she had met him.

So she was being melodramatic. Who cared? It wasn't like he could read her mind.

A cool wind blew, ruffling his brown hair. He looked good in a form fitting light grey sweater and black jeans. The wind blew around her and her friends, seemingly not affecting James, in a brown bomber jacket, but making Madeline, clad in a thin pink blouse and short skirt, cling to James for shelter.

"Rogue, cherie," he said, his voice as husky as she had remembered it.

"How did you know I – we were coming?" she asked, when what she really wanted to say was, 'I want you like I have never wanted anyone in my life. Take me in your arms, whisper-' her train of thought was mercifully interrupted on its way to becoming an excerpt from a cheesy romance novel when he spoke.

"Y' called, didn' y', cherie?" he was still wearing sunglasses, although it was well past dusk.

She paused, thinking she had called him, sometime. She seemed to remember fragments of a conversation. Indecisive, she turned to James for confirmation. James nodded.

"Ah guess Ah did," she said, looking back at Remy and noting with irritation that her accent was back. Then she slapped her forehead. "Sorry, please forgive my bad manners. I must introduce you people." She turned to Remy.

"Remy, this is my best friend, James. And this is his girlfriend, Madeline. James, Maddy, meet Remy."

The men shook hands, and then Remy reached to take Madeline's hand, presumably to kiss it. Suddenly he paused, and looked carefully at Madeline, who looked back, slightly apprehensive.

"How far back can you trace your family tree, Madeline?" his voice was soft, but the expression on his face was intent. His skin seemed unnaturally smooth and white at that moment.

"For a hundred years or so," Madeline replied with a nervous laugh. She was clearly unsure of what to make of Remy. Jessica was confused as well at Remy's questioning.

"Would you know an ancestor of yours, called Jean?" Even through his sunglasses his eyes seemed to bore into Madeline's.

"I do, actually. We have named at least one child every two generations 'Jean' for as long as our family can remember. The tradition was started a long time ago, and is supposed to bring our family luck. Er, is there any reason?"

Remy laughed an embarrassed laugh. "Oh, it was nothing. You see, one of my great grandfathers' dearest friends was a woman called Jean. There used to be a portrait of a family dinner at my place, and Lady Jean was present at it. You looked remarkably like her, and so I had to ask. My apologies if I startled you."

"Oh, that's alright," Madeline said, smiling, "I was just a little surprised, that's all."

"An' now, I drop y' people off at de hotel."

"Er, Remy," Jessica asked, a trifle hesitant, "You live here, don't you?"

"Oui, petite. My house is currently being renovated. I reminded y' o' dat on de phone, didn' I?"

"I think you did, actually. I'm sorry, my memory seems to be a bit off lately."

They all squeezed into the Merc, getting the luggage in with some difficulty.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

While Remus the man drove and suffered from a fit of depression at using his vampire powers to fool the poor girl into thinking they had talked on the phone, as well as noting the incredible telepathic power the woman called Madeline had, Remus the vampire scanned the minds of the workers he had hired an hour or so earlier, to fix his house.

His house..

It had been nearly ten years since he had gone to visit it, and that trip had lasted for a few seconds. It wasn't exactly a house, more like a huge dilapidated mansion, and at the moment, two of the three floors had fallen through, and the walls were inundated with seepage from the corroding pipes. The roof was mostly broken, the fields outside the mansion had been abandoned since the time of Louis the Sun King, and the garden was so full of weeds and overgrown bushes that a path was not discernable. There was no door to speak of, and most windows were missing panes, or had broken ones. It was more run down than the ideal concept of a haunted house.

Since Remus the vampire could do nothing to retake control of the body, he resigned himself to ordering the poor mortals to finish the house as quickly as possible. He did not care if they worked themselves to death; he wanted three mortals sleeping in the same remote location as him as soon as possible.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

At the hotel, Remus the man showed Jessica and her friends the suites he had arranged for them.

"I'm sorry, I didn' know Madeline would be comin', so I only asked for two rooms," He lied glibly, having arranged this so James and Madeline would leave him and Jessica the hell alone. "I can arrange anot'er room, but I don' know if it will be a suite. I doubt it, though."

"It's quite alright bub," James said, barely taking his eyes off Madeline, who was jumping around the room in glee, and a very short skirt. "Maddy an' I'll get along in one room somehow."

Satisfied that one part of the plan was working, Remus turned to Jessica, who was standing with her arms folded across her reddish brown turtleneck sweater, and was examining in turn, the four poster bed, the huge wallscreen TV, and the Jacuzzi which was out on the big terrace.

"Jessie," He said, softly. She didn't notice. "Jess?" no response. "Hey, Rogue!" she turned around, puzzled, then smiled when she realized he had called her. She had worn her hair straight, and Remus noticed the beginning of dimples in her smile. As he was staring at her, thoughts frozen for a second or two, she frowned.

"Why are you wearing sunglasses?" she asked, her tone indicating that she knew he was hiding something. Remus the man, the born liar, decided to go down fighting. From a thousand years of experience he knew that if a woman, mortal or vampire, knew the truth about you, there was no way in hell you could hide it.

"I tol' y', cherie, eye problems."

"Remy, why are you wearing sunglasses?" her tone was beguilingly patient. He wasn't fooled for a minute though. One vampire power was that of reading minds, after all.

"De color of my eyes, it doesn't match dis grey sweater I have on."

"Take them off." It was not a request in any sense of the word. If he wasn't low on blood, he might have flushed at the thought of one of the most powerful vampires in the world being whipped by a young mortal woman not even his girlfriend yet.

"Cherie, y' don' wan' I do dat." She advanced on him grimly. He backed away until he suddenly fell backwards on the bed, stunned for a second at the failure of his vampire senses.

She came atop him, straddling him, and then she sat on his stomach. She reached with both hands to remove the glasses and then she simply stared into his eyes. Stared deep into them. He was too confused to even mindscan her to learn what she was thinking. The absurdity of the situation fully struck home as he realized he was getting an erection. Something was getting him aroused and he couldn't put his finger on it. Well, actually, he could put his finger on it, but James and Madeline were in the room. Besides he hardly knew Jessica well enough to do such a thing. What would she say? A groan escaped his lips as he realized he wasn't even thinking coherently anymore.

From somewhere deep inside his mind, Remus the vampire seemed to snicker.

"So," Jessica said, her voice not betraying whatever emotion she felt. "Ya're a mutant."

"Oui. I know I should've tol' y' before, but I didn' want t' lose you. Rogue, amour, is't over?" he was speaking too fast, letting his nervousness show. He realized his life hinged on her next few words.

"Remy." Her eyes were inches from his. They were a colour of green he had never seen.

"Oui?"

"I'm a mutant also!" she cried gleefully, and hugged him. As he smelt her hair, he could only think about how wonderful life was.

"Smooth, Jess." James growled, as Remus's face managed a pale blush when he remembered there were others in the room. Then someone else spoke.

"Oh, get over it already." The vampire inside him was talking to him. He nearly jerked off the bed. He had to be careful about that; with his strength, Jessica would have gone through the ceiling of the room. Dimly, he realized Jessica was off him now, smoothing her hair and looking at him with complete serenity. He decided now would be a good time to leave.

"Jess, I havet' be goin' now." He noticed with a twitch of irritation that Madeline gave a slight smile, though she suppressed it quickly.

"When will you come?" Jessica asked him.

"My whole day'll be spent wit' de workers at de house. I'll have t' come by evening."

"We won't be able to see the Louvre?" Madeline said, looking like she would cry.

"I'm sorry, but my days are not mine to order about. My nights, however, are yours. I can arrange for a chauffeur, but I won't be wit' y' people, sadly." Because, he added silently, I'll be burnt to a cinder if I am.

Jessica was still expressionless, but he knew she understood the reasons he had given.

He kissed Madeline's hand; shook hands with James, then kissed Jessica full on the lips, grabbing her shoulders to prevent her from pulling away. It was a sort of an experiment.

He was witnessing a sensation he had never felt before. It was like his soul was being sucked through his mouth into Jessica. Being a vampire with the power of nearly a thousand years behind him, he could have touched her for a whole day without falling catatonic. But letting her drain him was not necessary as he realized with glee that he knew how to counter her deadly touch. And it was a simple matter to plant memories of an imaginary life in her head, and making sure she did not absorb his real memories. Life was good.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica had struggled for a few seconds, not wanting to hurt him. His grip was too strong, however, and eventually she realized he wasn't getting hurt. Then she closed her eyes and kissed him with real abandon. Her first real kiss.

She barely noticed James and Madeline sneak into the adjoining room so she and Remy could have privacy. Their kiss lasted a long time, but it was marred by the fact that she kept opening her eyes to check if he was getting hurt. Well, there was always time for perfection next time. And the next, and the next, and..

She let out a sigh as Remy moved away.

"I'll see y' tomorrow, cherie." Nearly twenty four hours? She wasn't sure she could last that long without looking at him.

"Take me with you," she said, impulsively.

"Que?" he asked, startled.

"I'll sleep where you sleep, and I can go visit the house with you in the morning."

"Jessie, petite," he said, taking her by the shoulders, eyes a soft muted ruby glow, "it can't be done. I'm stayin' at a friends place." He bent on one knee, still looking at her, "it pains me as much as it pains you when we part, but it cannot be helped. I have to go, but I will return; nothing can stop me from doing so. And this house business, it's only for a few days. My love for y' will last for much longer, cherie, much much longer. I have to reach the house at dawn and stay till dusk, but my entire night will be wit' y'. I won't sleep if you want. I'll stay as long as de stars shine, but let me go before de dawn." he stood up, leaving her at a loss for words.

"An' now, cherie, let us part before I change my mind and lock myself in de room wit' y', and swallow de key."

They kissed again, briefly. Then he was gone, a lingering fragrance the only indication that he had ever been there.

Jessica considered going over to James' and Madeline's room and discussing how she had finally touched another person for the first time since adolescence, but the sounds coming from there room were as effective as a 'do not disturb' sign. Madeline sure was loud.

Jessica unpacked her bags, changed into a nightdress, and lay in her bed with a book in hand. Within five minutes she was asleep, and thoughts of Remy filled her head.


	3. Lapses and Mistakes

Erm, I got very nice reviews on this within a few hours of posting, and it made me so happy that I decided to post up the third chapter a lot sooner then I intended to.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus the vampire hunted. Savagely.

He was angry, and he took out his anger on others. He had been given back possession of the body on the condition that he avoid the hotel entirely. Otherwise the puny man inside him would take over. One thing that made him angry was that the weak man was not weak anymore; Remus the vampire was at his command. The other thing was that he had begun to feel emotions.

It had started with a strange feeling he couldn't quite describe when he had been shunted from his position of power. That feeling had turned into full fledged anger, and then a kind of despair. Worst of all, he was developing a sense of humour. He had actually laughed when the fool human Remus was having an erection.

Even angrier than before, he de-capacitated a startled hobo near an abandoned skatepark, sweeping out of the night looking like a deranged preppie.

Another thing he hated was the clothes.

Mildly satisfied now, he barely drunk the blood. He had had his fill anyway. He jumped away and soared towards the castle, igniting what was left of the hobo with a mental flick. A vampire always had to hide the evidence.

And in this case, he had to hide the evidence from Alexander, who could very nearly read his mind like a book. If Alexander found out about how he had been completely cast aside by the human, his life was forfeit.

He hurtled toward the castle as a diffused pink light started to fill the horizon.

x-x-x-x-x-x

The Louvre, one of the finest museums in the world, skittered across the surface of Jessica's concentration. She tried not to look bored as the guide droned on, his English marked by a French accent as annoying as Remy's was charming. She suppressed an urge to look at her watch for the eighth time in the hour they had been at the museum. Her mind only thought of Remy, his touch, his voice. The museum held no interest for her. James was clearly out of his depth here. He looked like someone had puked on him and told him to enjoy it. But he stood there, feigning attention, because Madeline had wanted to see the museum. On the other hand, if it had been Jessica who had cajoled him into coming, he would have walked out a long time ago. Even now, Jessica was unsure of how they would get along. They liked each other, maybe even loved each other, but as Jessica saw the annoyance on James's face in complete contrast to the expression of rapture on Madeline's, she couldn't help but feel their relationship was doomed.

The trip to the museum lasted for what seemed like an eternity. Then, thankfully, it was over just as dusk, like an angel of mercy, filled the sky. Just as Jessica was ready to head back to the hotel, Madeline suggested a stop at some shops. At that moment for Jessica, her beautiful red hair looked wraithlike and her pretty green sweater looked fungus stained. She wondered how unladylike it would be to attack her.

"Well, Jessie?" James asked. He hated shopping himself; preferring comfortable old clothes, but his concern to see Madeline's every whim fulfilled took precedence.

"Ah guess we cahn." Jessica said, a small part of her mind clinically noting that the accent came back only when she was particularly upset. They headed for the shops without further comment, except for Madeline gleefully pointing out the birds flying home.

Goddamn it, that girl got happy at the smallest things.

The shopping trip was progressing uneventfully. Jessica was idly fingering through a selection of gaudy pink dresses, wondering what the French obsession with pink was, when a pair of arms encircled her waist.

"Cherie," whispered a voice she had thought of every waking moment for the past week.

She spun around with a sudden smile, his name on her lips, but all that she said was,

"How'd ya'll come here?"

"Y' left a message with de hotel, t' tell me dat y' were shopping."

But hadn't Madeline just suggested it after the museum? That was odd, she could remember telling the hotel staff to tell Remy where they were. All thought was blocked out then, as Remy kissed her. She could verify the thing later, the thing, the- something..

She couldn't remember what it was, but she didn't really care.

"Alright bub, I'm pretty sure yer tongue's homesick by now," James growled.

He moved away then, and she felt the weight lift off her lips. She kept her eyes closed for a split second longer, savoring the kiss, her mouth still upturned and her lips slightly pouting. Then she opened her eyes and shook her head slightly. They had to be alone tonight. She didn't know what she would do if they weren't. Maybe kill James for making too many smart-mouth comments.

Remy was shaking hands with James, and then he turned to Madeline, kissing her hand in the old style. She smiled, and her dimples appeared. Irrationally, Jessica wished her own dimples would show as much.

Remy had taken the shopping bags from Madeline's arms, and she was showing him the dresses. He was as knowledgeable about dresses as a tailor would be; he assured her that the georgette dress did not suit her complexion, while the silk one should have had slightly longer sleeves, as well as a fuller neckline. Being a fashion model, Madeline easily countered his opinions while the discussion moved off into the realm of current fashion styles and designer wear. James and Jessica simply stood there, feeling a little out of their depth.

Five minutes later, when Remy was assuring Madeline that the new Armani lineup would not focus on the flaring pants that were the current rage, Jessica decided that they had been ignored long enough. Firmly taking Remy's arm, she smiled sweetly at Madeline, who had been flanked by a possessive James. She wasn't being possessive herself, merely cautious.

"Ah think we should go for dinner now," she said, her eyes feigning innocence, her mind cursing the accent. Madeline seemed surprised for a second at the sudden interruption, but recovered enough to smile equally sweetly, flashing those damned dimples.

"Dinner sounds good," she said, taking James's arm. "I guess we can continue our conversation later then, Remy?"

"'Nytime, Mad'line," Remy replied with a bow. "Y'r humble servant awaits."

Jessica tried the breathing exercises she had been taught long ago. The emotion she was feeling was not jealousy, was it? No, not jealousy at all. There wasn't a jealous bone in her body. She should be happy that Remy and Madeline had hit it off famously. She should be- oh damn that slut!

Grimly, she marched out of the room, half dragging a surprised Remy behind her.

x-x-x-x-x-x

At the dining table, Remus the man sat, feeling guilty about how he had controlled Jessica's conceptions again. He also worried about his compulsive flirting with Madeline. He genuinely loved Jessica, but could not avoid flirting. It amazed and saddened him to see how weak he was.

Remus the vampire on the other hand, worried. Worry being an emotion, he was unaccustomed to it, and that made him angry. Another emotion. If the human hadn't had possession of the body, he might have slammed his fist on, and broken the table in frustration. Frustration! He was worrying about how Remus the man would avoid eating, since anything apart from blood was poisonous for a vampire. One meal would not severely harm a vampire as powerful as him, but any discomfort was better off avoided. He worried that Remus the man, the reckless idiot, might actually eat, even knowing the ill-effects.

He need not have bothered.

"Aren't you eating, Remy?" Jessica asked, her eyes reflecting the concern she felt.

"Cherie, much as it pains him to admit it, Remy is suffering from indigestion."

"How bad is it?" the hairy little James asked, his tone indicating excruciating pain would be preferable. Clearly he had not forgiven Remus for talking to his girlfriend.

"'Tis nothing, merely a little discomfort. Hopefully it'll pass in a day or two." Remus the man was a smooth bastard, he had to concede that. He had gotten the sympathy of the women, and James would be hard pressed to find fault with him. Well, it was time to upset his smoothness a little.

x-x-x-x-x-x

As food was served, Remus the man smelt the aroma he could not savor. He loved the smell of food, but he knew his vampire self was probably apprehensive of his close proximity to potentially toxic substances.

As Madeline commented on how divine the food was, and James tried to make some educated sounding remarks on it to her, he could only watch as Jessica delicately ate her food. For some reason, he felt he could sit there motionless as long as she ate her food, just watching her, watching the way she gave a délicat twist of her wrist to pick up the tiny piece of meet, lifting it to her mouth, and sensually putting it in her mouth by using her teeth to pull the edge of it off the fork.

"Getting aroused by watching people eat, are we?" A hollow voice said from inside his mind, breaking his concentration. "For a grand finale, you can ask her to excrete in front of you."

It was all he could do to not jerk away from the table.

"Y'-y' can talk t' me?" he thought, his fear ill-concealed.

"Yes, human, I can talk to you. I can also hear you, and I suggest you drop that God-awful French accent."

"But how? How can we talk?"

"I do not rightly know, human, but I can tell you what I think. If I choose to."

"Tell me!"

"Tell you? The one who displaces me from my rightful command of the body? Why?"

"I must know!"

"You seek to destroy me forever. To take this body, and somehow convert it back to human form, is that not it? You fear that she will reject you when she recognizes what you really are, and you believe that by casting me out, you will turn this body, dead for nearly a thousand years, into a human one, is that not right? You are as naïve as you were when Magnus made you into me."

"He never made me into you! He just suppressed me, until I was merely a small part of you. For close to a thousand years, I had no identity. I could not remember what I was, or what my purpose was. Then when I saw her, I remembered."

His control of the body was slipping because he had lost his temper, and his head, which had been staring at the table in front of him, suddenly lifted itself to look at Jessica. With a startled hiss, he resumed full control of the body. Deep inside him, the vampire laughed, a hollow laugh, to match his hollow voice.

"The old true love angle, is it? So she's the root of this whole problem. I thank you for confirming that, old boy. When I dispose of her, you shall be merely a memory."

"You shan't touch her!" It was all he could do to keep a lid on his powers, control the body, and appear to be having a good time. Outwardly, he was discussing something inane with Jessica, the weather or something. On the inside, he was fighting a battle he had a very good chance of losing.

"I hate her, human. Nearly as much as I hate you. And do you know why? Because both of you have somehow taught me how to hate, to become angry, to feel fear. I hate these emotions; they cloud my judgment, make me less a vampire and more – human. When I was locked away for the first time, the first time you saw her, I felt something I had never before. This – this horrible emotion. Anger. And after anger there came a host of others. And do you know which one I hate most?"

The vampire paused in his tirade, making sure Remus the man was paying full attention.

"This very annoying dry humor I have developed. I'm French, not British, Goddamn it!"

In spite of himself, Remus the man laughed. This of course, to use the current vernacular, thoroughly pissed the vampire off.

"You think it's funny, do you?" He hissed, struggling to take control of the body. Frantically, Remus the man tried to control him.

"You think it's funny?" the vampire repeated, his attempts becoming faster, "you are mistaken if you think she's your salvation." Suddenly he stopped trying to take over. Remus the man took a deep breath, but the vampire ranted on.

"If she manages to live, if I do not destroy her, what will you tell her? Will you tell her you've been undead for a thousand years? Will you tell her about all the women you have slept with, and then killed, because you could not face a child of yours? Will you tell her about all the babies you have killed? All the sins you have committed?"

"It was all you!" Remus the man roared in his mind, realizing his facial expression was one of dark fury. He corrected it hastily, thankful that no one had been looking at him in that moment, except for the maitre' de, who hastily backed away into the kitchen.

"So you'll tell her that yes, you have been a vampire for a thousand years, but someone else made you do all the naughty stuff? Please; I may hate her, but I don't insult her intelligence."

"I'll tell her the truth. I'll tell her that you have been in control of this body for nearly a thousand years, and that I am the man who was alive a thousand years ago."

"Let me assume she believes you. Let's just assume she realizes you're just picking up where you left off ten centuries ago. Let's assume she recognizes me for the pure evil that I am. But tell me, do you think you're as innocent as a new born lamb? As pure as the driven snow? Do you not remember how you went a-drinking and a-whoring when you were alive? And even if you don't, surely you remember how you've manipulated her in the past week; making her come to Paris, making her think all sorts of good things about you. _Making her love you._"

"She loves me of her own will!" Remus the man was almost on his feet. He calmed down with superhuman effort, and stopped the restaurant from glowing a faint pink.

The vampire snickered again.

"We both know the answer to that; human. You've used her because you were lonely. You've used her to make you feel loved, and you have convinced yourself that she loves you of her own accord. You may look down on me as being pure evil, but we are both tainted; you and I. This is no titanic battle between good and evil. The only difference between us is that I accept myself for what I am."

"Liar!" Remus the man snarled, and lost control entirely. The vampire took over the body as easily as one breathes, and Remus the man was shunted off to one side.

"And now," the vampire said aloud, "let the fun begin."

x-x-x-x-x-x

Jessica looked quizzically at Remy, who after remaining unusually silent through most of the dinner, had suddenly mentioned that it was time for some fun. She glanced down at her plate; she had taken only a bite or two of the dessert, Blackforest pudding.

"Er, Rem? We haven't finished eatin'." She said, though she was looking forward to having fun. The kind of fun it's easier to have in a bedroom that a nightclub.

"Leave it petite. No matter how good de food is, de night is too pretty t' be wasted eatin'."

Okay, now that was unusual. He had been nothing but accommodating earlier, and now he had very nearly given her an order. Still, she was looking forward to hitting the clubs. She took one last bite of the pudding, and stood up. James was getting their coats.

"Now we go t' de fines' clubs Paris has t' offer." He said, holding out his hand to her. She took it, no longer afraid of hurting him. She did not know what power he had, but it effectively prevented him from getting hurt.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus the vampire smiled as he stroked Jessica's arm through her sweater. He enjoyed the touch; the touch of a victim, the way the hand usually slid slowly down his throat after it had been trying to pull his head away from the victim's neck.

He suppressed an erotic thrill, wryly berating himself for being as susceptible to the girl as that fool, his alterego was.

The human was banging on the walls of his mental prison, making all the usual threats a person in a hopeless situation made.

"You touch her, murderer, and I swear I'll-"

"Do what? Strangle this beautiful body, killing yourself as well? You have not the courage. Don't bluff, please. It's demeaning."

"Don't touch her!"

"Afraid I'll rape your little precious before I kill her? I might, but we'll have to wait until after the clubs. You do know about the little surprise she has planned for you, right? The supposed migraine to get the hairball and the other girl off your backs, the pretended drive to the pharmacy, the room in another hotel with the flowers in it, and the call to the hairball that your car broke down and you'll come in the morning? It if wasn't so delightfully complicated, I'd swear you had implanted the thought in her head."

"She was supposed to be with me tonight!" the human said, his voice breaking. The poor human, with his totally human emotions, was going to cry. Aw.

"Well, we can't have everything we wish for, can we? A million victims, the blood of a vampire, a body," He paused, looking at the ridiculous light blue sweater he was wearing, "decent clothes. Well, anyway, if I do anything to her, human, I promise I'll let you watch."

"Non!" he ignored the voice. Stopping, he looked at Jessica.

"Cherie, do y' wan' I change into something more suitable for a club?"

"I think you're fine, Remy." She answered, a bit surprised.

"How about a black jacket? Won't that look good?" he forced himself not to walk off and take the damned jacket. He knew he had to listen to her, to do as she said. For a few more hours, anyway.

"Oh, Remy, you're a nice French boy, not one of the Hell's angels," she chided him. "Come on, now. James and Maddy are almost in the club." She took him by the arm and led him towards the club. He followed, trying not to pout. Hell's angels? He had wanted to look like the classical concept of a vampire; dark and brooding. Not like a damned biker.

Nice French boy?

Indeed.

x-x-x-x-x-x

James sat at the bar, watching Madeline dance with some French pansy. He had not danced himself; fine tuned rhythmic movements were not his forte; but he had made it abundantly clear with various gestures when Madeline wasn't looking, that any guy who tried for even first base would take his balls home in his pocket.

He downed another beer, spurning the classy French wine, wondering how soon he was going to get laid again. Yesterday had been fun. He had to get Jessica off his back though, somehow. He had heard her yesterday, coming to his door, and it hadn't been nice, knowing she was listening to them. Listening to Madeline, actually. She was a bit too loud, even for James's taste.

He belched loudly, motioning for another can, looking at Remus and Jessica dancing. He was sure that Jessica was in love, but he still wasn't sure about Remus. The man was too much of an enigma to be trusted with the heart of his best friend. He seemed to be at war with himself, and changing constantly, a sickeningly nice guy one second, and someone entirely different the next.

No sir, James did not trust him at all.

He turned his attention back to where Madeline was, noticing that there was a distance of only about three inches between her body and that of her dancing partner's. He wasn't expecting a square dance, but this was ridiculous. Certain rules had to be kept.

Stumbling slightly, he tossed the beer can with the twenty others he had drunk, and walked in approximately a straight line to where two Madeline's were dancing with two French faggots.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Remus the vampire had his careful appraisal of Jessica's jugular interrupted by a frantic voice in his mind.

"Stop James! He's going to cause a scene."

"On a first name basis, are you? How intimate is your relationship anyway?" he said, while he swung Jessica around so he was facing the direction where James was slowly though purposefully heading towards Madeline and some French guy.

"You want me to stop him so there isn't a big fracas, right?" he asked, his eyes behind their shades gauging the distance between the dancing couple and James. "Why?"

"The evening will go downhill if he makes a scene. Madeline won't speak to him for at least a day or two, and Jessica will have to stay to talk to him."

"You really want to see me get laid, don't you?" Remus the vampire said, noting that James was trying to extend his claws.

"Stop him!"

Remus the vampire didn't say anything, but he concentrated on James. He was doing this only because he wouldn't get Jessica alone if James made a scene, and a vampire did not do public killings.

He had control of James's body for a few moments. Slowly, grudgingly, the claws went back in. James did not notice.

This was a bit harder than altering memories; this was all out mind-control. Most vampires avoided it altogether.

Well, he wasn't most vampires, was he?

His teeth clenched ever so slightly, as he tried to keep in step with Jessica while trying to control James.

Over in the middle of the dancefloor, James haltingly stretched out his arm, tapping the Frenchman, easily a foot taller than him, on the shoulder in order to punch him when he looked at James.

At this point, Remus the vampire took over his mind. For a second, he wondered what on earth he would make James say, as Madeline and the Frenchman both looked at James inquiringly.

"May I have this dance?" he said, his mouth moving only slightly differently. Remus the vampire's own mouth was moving silently, saying the words.

As Madeline flashed her dimples and agreed, he suddenly realized what he had gotten himself into.

This time, it was the human's turn to laugh.

"A vampire a thousand years old makes such a stupid mistake? This should be interesting. Very interesting indeed."

What followed was a nightmare he had not ever imagined. Even being burnt in the sun might have been preferable to this.

He was leading two dances. And being a vampire and not a hip teenager, he didn't know the steps.

His face was locked in a grimace, which was forced to melt into a smile whenever Jessica looked up at him. The perspiration on his forehead, however, he could do very little about; and since a vampire did not have sweat, it would be blood that was seeping through his pores. He also hadn't fed this night. With the uncanny perception a thousand years of experience brings, he saw he had effectively buried himself in a big pile of dung.

On the other side of the dancefloor, James danced as well as he could, which was not very well, even without the alcohol that impaired Remus's instructions.

Madeline did not seem to notice though, and he turned as much of his attention as he could to Jessica, who was looking at him, smiling. She had, of course, seen who he was looking at.

"They make an odd couple, won't y' say, cherie?" he said, hiding his loss for words.

She made a disapproving expression, and he did not have the energy to mindscan her to see if she was joking or not.

"Er, well, dey don' fit together as well as we do, do dey?" he said, hoping his French accent was accurate, while making James just avoid accidentally stepping on a girl's foot.

Jessica smiled at that remark. "Not at all," was the only thing she said.

x-x-x-x-x-x

An hour later, the vampire could take no more.

"Take your damned woman," he snarled at Remus, man, before surrendering control of the body.

Remus the man flowed joyfully into the body, and realized it was a hair's breadth away from collapsing. He quickly made James suggest that he and Madeline sit down, ignoring the pout on Madeline's face.

Then he told Jessica that James and Madeline had gone off the dancefloor, and that they probably expected Remus and Jessica to join them. He wheedled until Jessica agreed to leave the dancefloor, then thankfully followed her to where James and Madeline sat.

The thirst in him was clouding his thought. He could only think of the bodies around him, with their press of blood. He knew he would not 'get some' tonight. He was as drained as he had ever been. Almost to the point of emptiness. And so, so tired.

"Are you alright, Remy? You look pale." Jessica said. It was kind of obvious he would be pale; he had barely a liter of blood left in him. He would have to drink from two or three bodies tonight; always a risky proposition. Not too much attention was paid to the disappearance of one hobo, but two or three deaths led to a careful watchfulness by the police.

Jessica was about to touch his forehead when he leaned back slightly, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his brow, concealing the thin sheen of blood on it. Jessica, of course, thought he was being considerate in not wanting her to get his sweat on her hand.

Yeah, right.

He let her touch him then, experiencing that now-familiar jolt, and suddenly realizing he didn't have enough strength to stop her from absorbing his memories. He jerked back then, as her face grew several shades paler.

"Cherie, we have to talk." He said, not having a plausible game-plan. The vampire in his mind laughed, this time without too much humor.

"A vampire a thousand years old makes such a stupid mistake? Wasn't that what you said? What about the human? If the vampire shot himself in the foot, then I would say the human took an axe and chopped his legs off. This promises to be very interesting, human. Very interesting indeed. I'm looking forward to it, to tell you the truth."

"Shut up," was the only thing Remus could stammer, as the group left the club, Jessica keeping James between her and Remus.


	4. A Change of Plans

Okay, I realise it's been a very long time since I updated, and I'm hoping interest in this fanfic hasn't been flagging too much, but I just wanted to apologize for the long delay; med school really takes out sizable chunks of your time.

Other than that, I'm hoping to update a lot more regularly now, and I'm well on my way through the sequel to this story, so hopefully I'll have it done by the time I've finished uploading all of this one.

Once again, thanks to all those who reviewed, and also to my beta-er, who convinced me to renew work on this after it had been languishing in my computer for a year.

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In Egypt, Alexander looked through the opening of the pyramid, apprehensive. Just because he was a vampire did not mean he had to like dark and confined places.

"You sure this's the place?" he asked Francis, who was standing next to him. Alexander had forced him to drink blood, his own blood, and now Francis was damned near as powerful as himself. The twenty-five hundred year starvation had done that.

"I'm certain," Francis said. He had not been happy about drinking the blood, but realizing how important the blood had been, he was willing to amend his pacifist policy a bit; snakes and rodents were fair game. Humans, however, remained strictly off-limits.

"Even with the calibre of the shielding done, I can detect him from this close. I am now, thanks to your blood of course, powerful enough to detect the thought of any man in the hemisphere I'm in, as well as those of some astronauts close to earth. I _know_ he is in this pyramid for certain, though I do not know why you want to raise him from his slumber.

"Nur shall rally us. No more shall we skulk from shadow to shadow, fearing the eyes of mankind, fearing that they shall expose us to the sun while we sleep!"

Francis stepped away from Alexander, startled at the passion in his voice.

"I know you can survive the sun," Francis said, trying to convince Alexander not to waken the most powerful creature in the world, "and you could take out an army on your own. Why would you need a crutch to support you?"

"Goading me will not stop me for doing what is best for our kind," Alexander hissed, his long blonde hair forming a wreath around his pale face as he disappeared into the dark chamber. Francis called out behind him, gingerly stepping into the tomb himself.

""But surely you remember that Nur locked himself here before almost any of us because he felt he was too great a danger to the world. He had his survivalist theory, and he knew that only he could survive what his qualifications were. You shouldn't let him loose on the world. Might he not kill you for it?"

There was no reply from inside the tomb. Sighing, and flexing his newly healed legs to test his muscles, he stepped over the debris and went down the dark passageway, his vampire feet making no noise any human could detect.

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In the hotel room, Jessica sat on the bed, holding James protectively, but being careful that she touched him only with her gloves. Her eyes were watering, but firmly fixed on Remus. Madeline sat on her other side, stroking her shoulder, trying to calm her down. Remus stood against the wall, a sentenced man about to stand trial.

Jessica had absorbed enough memories in their brief contact to realize he was nothing close to what he had claimed to be, and Madeline, with her telepathy, could read this from her mind, though not from Remus himself, as he was too powerful. She was apprehensive of Remus, though she could not bring herself to believe what Jessica saw was true; all the bodies, all that blood, a trail stretching back a thousand years.

James simply knew that something had freaked out the two most important women in his life, and he was going to hurt Remus for it. All he needed was the slightest indication that Remus was about to hurt them more, and he would go berserk, even though he recognized the fact that Remus was much more powerful than him.

After a silence lasting about five minutes, punctuated only by Jessica's sobs, Remus spoke.

"Jessica," he began, but James was on his feet, claws extended.

"Ya ain't earned the right to call her that, bub," he growled, while Madeline looked in horror at the claws; she had not tried to read his mind to find out more about him, feeling it would be betraying his trust, and thus, knew nothing about his mutant powers, as he knew nothing about hers.

"James, let me-" Remus started, but James interrupted again.

"Say what ya haveta say, bub, but don't say our names with your dirty tongue. I'm givin' ya one speech before I take Jess outta here."

Remus took off his glasses then, letting them look at his eyes. He then picked up a vase from the table next to him and charged it lightly. It glowed crimson, then crumbled into ashes without exploding.

"That was my power as a mutant," he remarked conversationally. "Of course, it can vary in terms of explosive power and charging time." He paused while they stared at him silently, knowing this was not all he would say. They were all mutants, so this revelation did not have the effect it would have had if he had told a room full of people.

He waited for a second, letting them take one more good look at him, and then ran to the mirror on the opposite wall with superhuman speed, knowing their eyes could not follow his movement.

"That was part of another power of mine," he said a few seconds later, after letting them think he had vanished into thin air. They jerked their heads around to look at him. He waited until he was sure they had gotten over their shock, and then he lifted the full length mirror with its wrought iron frame right out of the wall with his vampiric strength.

"That was another part of this other power," he remarked, effortlessly twisting the frame into a figure eight, breaking the mirror in the process. Then he picked up a shard of the mirror, and walked around the bed, standing right in front of Jessica.

"This," he said, his voice low and intense, dragging the sliver across his wrist, "is the third manifestation of that power." Despite her repulsion for him at that moment, Remus saw Jessica's eyes tinged with fear for his safety – if not his sanity – as she saw him cut his wrist.

The wound healed almost instantly, as his vampire body went into overtime to conserve its precious blood. He watched as the few undried drops of blood fell to the carpet below, their color much more vibrant then human blood, the difference clear even to human eyes.

"And all this," he said softly, even the blazing color of his eyes muted, looking at each of them in turn, "is after I have been weakened, and after not having fed today."

"What is this power?" James asked, in his surprise forgetting to address Remus as 'bub'.

"I," Remus replied, his eyes glowing crimson again, his bearing more erect, regal, in fact, as he looked down on them from a pedestal they could never hope to reach, "am a vampire."

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Alexander was standing arms folded, staring across a gully as Francis finally caught up to him. The floor had collapsed, God only knew how many centuries ago, to create a sharp cleft that no human would ever have a chance of crossing, and perhaps no mutant or vampire either. It stretched for what seemed to be at least a hundred meters, a large distance considering neither of them could fly. The chamber soared to at least a hundred feet, and Francis correctly estimated that they were right under the apex of the pyramid.

"Finally," Alexander murmured, his voice barely audible, even to Francis's vampire-keen hearing, "I was beginning to think you had gotten lost in the catacombs."

"I saw the holes you had blasted," Francis said, his voice indicating how unnecessary he thought it had been. Alexander smiled humorlessly, picking up every thought from Francis's head without even trying to.

"I waited for you because I figured you wouldn't know how to get across," he said, still staring at the gully. "Now come on, follow my lead."

"What are we going to do?" Francis asked; his brain unable to come up with a solution. Alexander, however, was older, and had not spent his entire immortal life bound to a wheelchair. He knew the extent of his powers.

"We jump." He stated simply.

"A hundred meters? Have you taken leave of your senses?" Francis asked incredulously, thinking that Alexander was joking for some reason.

Alexander did not reply to the question, but said, "Hurry up now, I want this done tonight. I don't want to spend a day in this tomb." Then he took a step back, just one step, and then ran forward and jumped across to the other side, his arms outstretched and his trajectory nearly flat, his hair streaming behind him.

Francis stared.

On the other side of the gully, Alexander turned and waved his hand. "Come on, you can do this," he said, barely raising his voice above a normal speaking level, "Nur's tomb is only a few chambers ahead."

Francis walked up to the edge of the gully and looked down. Even with vampire sight, he could not fathom the bottom. If he fell in, he would not die, but he would probably not be able to climb out, and spend the rest of eternity in it. Alexander would undoubtedly leave him down there.

He walked back to the wall, counting off the steps. On the other side, Alexander impatiently waited. Then, taking a deep breath, though as a vampire he had no need to breathe, he ran forward.

He was at the edge of the gully almost before he realized it, unaccustomed to his enhanced speed as he was. He jumped then, an awkward jump, expecting he would jump as high as Alexander had, only a few feet above the ground.

But Alexander had long ago learned to control his movements, and Francis, bound to a wheelchair for about twenty five hundred years, had no control over his. He looked up, then clenched his eyes and ducked his head as he saw the ceiling rushing to meet him. The rocky surface scraped against his bald skull, and he started to fall, landing with a thump at Alexander's feet.

"Vampire hair can barely be cut by a sharp knife," Alexander remarked conversationally, helping Francis to his feet, "and that too if someone with vampire strength is holding the knife. Sadly, you were bald when Magnus made you. A vampire is frozen forever in the form he was in when he died. Our hair, our nails, our beards, they all stay the same lengths they were at the moment we died. They change slightly though; the hair grows fuller, more lustrous, while the fingernails turn as clear as glass." He peered at Francis's head. "Have you healed? Good, we can continue on now."

They walked into the next room, Francis still gingerly rubbing his skull.

"Er, won't Nur have guards, or something to prevent him from being disturbed?" Francis asked Alexander as they walked on, their vampire eyes seeing quite well in the pitch darkness.

"That is one of the reasons I brought you along," Alexander replied, his eyes focused on the passageway ahead, "you were a telepath before you were Born to Darkness. I'm counting on you to detect any life forms." Before Francis could reply, they both heard noises from the next room. Alexander glanced at Francis, who shook his head.

"I can't sense anything," he said, but his voice had dropped to a whisper of its own accord.

Suddenly, as they stepped into the next chamber, hundreds of torches were lit. Shielding his eyes from the sudden glare after hours of darkness, Francis could make out vague, human shaped figures all around him, but his brain still told him there was no one in the room except for him and Alexander.

There was a movement, and the wall behind them collapsed, cutting off escape to the passageway they had come from. The beings all around them converged slowly.

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Back in the hotel room in France, Remus the man sat composedly as he watched James practically rolling on the floor in laughter. Remus the vampire was not around; he was probably still recuperating from his ordeal.

Jessica and Madeline were not laughing. Jessica knew what she had absorbed from his mind was true, and Madeline knew what she had read from Jessica's mind was not a flight of fancy. They both edged away from him, as if thinking they could outrun him if he tried to kill them.

James was wiping a tear from his eye at the moment. "A bleedin' vampire, he said he was a bleedin' vampire! Why aren't you girls laughin'? He said he was a vampire!" James paused then, looking at the expression of terror on the girls faces. Understanding dawned on his, then. Without any thought for his safety, he extended both claws and charged Remus.

Remus caught the claws, and looked down into James's face, watching his bared teeth. Then he smiled, not the charming smiles he had given Jessica earlier, but a broad one, baring all his teeth. His fangs were bigger than James's. Still smiling, he let go of one of James's hands, feeling the claws stick into his stomach. He watched as James's expression turned from one of blind fury to one of extreme shock.

Then he flung James into the twisted framework of the broken mirror with one hand.

Madeline screamed then, and she stood up, eyes blazing, lifting everything, bed and Remus included, off the ground. From the corner of his eye, outside the window Remus saw a car floating upwards. Jessica sat frozen in shock as she realized Madeline was doing this, as she and James were not aware of Madeline's immense power. James had gotten up, and he also simply stood and watched as Madeline advanced on Remus.

"Madeline," Remus said, trying for some damage control, "I did not hurt James at all. You can ask him, he's standing right behind you." Remus wanted to avoid a fight.

Fat chance.

"How dare you touch the man I love?" she asked, in a tone that had all the danger of an H-bomb.

"Er, darlin'?" James said, ecstatic that she had said she loved him, but wanting to tell the truth, "I'm unhurt."

"She's telepathic," Remus muttered, his eyes still focused on Madeline's, "she can tell that. She just wants an excuse to try and kick my ass."

"Try?" Madeline asked as she hurled everything smaller than a table at him, her voice rising an octave, "try?"

Remus simply stood there, still looking only at her, hands by his sides, exploding everything big and letting the smaller objects break themselves as they hit his body, which might have been carved from marble.

"Don't do this, Madeline," he pleaded again, "I don't want to hurt any of you."

"You threw James into that steel!" Jessica shouted, getting off the bed, which was wobbling as Madeline lost her control, "you don't want ta hurt us?"

"His healing factor's already taken care of any injury he had," Remus said, watching the blank expression on all three faces. "James, didn't you know? You can heal much faster than normal humans."

Evidently, after all those years of bar fights, he still hadn't realized. He must have been too drunk on all the twenty, thirty separate occasions. Jessica, obviously, could not have known, and Madeline could not pull the information out of his head because he did not know it.

The shock was wearing off. There was too much information for them to handle in one night, and the night was nearly over. He had to take them with him, and the coven headquarters were not a good place for three mortals.

"All of you have to come with me," he said, knowing that they would not accept.

Well, duh.

There was no spoken response, only a table hurled at his head. He shifted his head a few centimeters to the side and moved it back as soon as the table had bounced back, knowing it appeared as if the table had passed through him.

"You have to come with me," he repeated, "please?"

Three faces looked at him, two filled with hate, and one with a disappointment so deep it broke his heart. "Not your knight in shining armor, am I cherie?" he whispered, his voice barely audible even to his ears. Then he used his empathy on them for the first time since entering the hotel room, convincing them that they were very tired.

He watched them drop off, one by one, and then he leapt out the window. There was just enough time till sunrise for him to feed, and then come back to collect them and take them to his mansion.

He hit the ground ten stories below, and faded into the darkness, his footsteps making no sound on the cobbled pathway.

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"I can't sense anything," Alexander muttered, mimicking the words Francis had spoken earlier, "there are about a thousand or two thousand vampires in here, and you couldn't sense anything?"

They were standing with their backs to a wall, as the creatures closed in. the torches were extinguished now, all except for one which blazed somewhere in the back. The silhouettes advanced on them, silently, menacingly. Then they attacked.

As he leaned against the wall, desperately fending off the attacks, Francis suddenly had an answer to why he could not detect the vampires.

"They're mindless beasts!" he shouted to Alexander who had been cut off from him by a press of bodies. "I can't read their minds because they have none!"

"It took you long enough to realize that," shouted Alexander just before he disappeared under a pile of vampires that were trying to gnaw any part of him they could find.

Being a strict pacifist, Francis could not fight anyone, not even walking corpses like these. He climbed the rocky surface as far as he could, then tried to avoid being hit by the monsters.

"I'm not fighting them, Alexander," he shouted in the general direction of Alexander, still buried under all those vampires, "I cannot." He preferred death over a break in his moral code.

A blue burst of energy was the answer he got, spreading in a sphere that vaporized most of the vampires. Its epicenter was where Francis had last seen Alexander before he disappeared under the other vampires. As the wave passed over him, Francis knew that any vampire less than a thousand years old would have been burnt to ashes from the energy, as well as some weakened and starving vampires over a thousand years old. It hurt him badly, but he was already healing, and he would be back to normal before Alexander finished mopping up the remaining vampires.

Bright blue swathes cut through the darkness of the crypt, as Alexander took on what Francis estimated to be five hundred surviving vampires. The solitary glowing torch had not moved, and Francis could barely make out a figure standing there, a figure that stood straight in contrast to the zombies attacking Alexander, a figure that he was sure was commanding the attack.

As he was about to warn Alexander, Alexander finished off the last of the zombie-vampires, and looked at the torch. Something subtle moved in his expression, a shift so small that for a second Francis was not sure if he had actually seen it, or imagined it. But as Alexander walked forward, he realized what the change of expression had meant.

Alexander knew this man.

Cautiously, Francis followed, realizing he could pick nothing from this strange man's thoughts because they were too well shielded. Even if this person had been a man instead of a vampire, his thoughts would have been really difficult to detect. As it stood, he was a vampire as old, or older than Alexander himself.

A face materialized finally, a face which was whiter than any vampire's, even Alexander's, and Alexander had hid from the sun for thirty centuries. The whiteness seemed to be part of some mutation. Glowing red eyes stared at them.

A ruby in the middle of the smooth white face glistened as the man stepped forward.

"Alexander," he said, simply. Alexander also stood, still as a statue, his face that of a cruel God in repose, and they faced each other off. Francis could tell without any telepathy that this was animosity that stretched back before he was born.

"Nathaniel," was all that Alexander said.

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Remus was nearly rejuvenated, having killed two whores and a thug who had tried to rob him, all in separate parts of Paris, so that even if they were discovered – unlikely, as each body was ashes now – it would not seem the work of one man. He had woken up the secretary of the construction company that was renovating his house and told her to stop the work being done until further notice. He had taken provisions for the human's to his house.

He sped off for the hotel then, noting that sunrise was nearly ten minutes away.

Remus reached the hotel, and entered the room from the outside, flying up through the window. He then tied James to his right leg with the bed sheet and tossed Jessica over one shoulder and Madeline over the other. He didn't want James to fall off in flight, but if he did, his healing factor would probably help him live. If he didn't, well, Madeline would have to die too; she would go insane with rage if he died.

Checking one last time that James was securely tied, Remus flew off to his mansion.

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Remus the vampire was nearly back to his full power when he saw the half-built walls of the mansion in front of him through Remus's eyes. He would have smiled if he had had a body. The fool human was taking three people to an abandoned place hours away from any civilization.

Three people?

Three victims.

He watched silently, giving no indication that he was around. The human worked feverishly; sunrise was only minutes away, and he had to accommodate the three people because of some inner need for courtesy. He put the three on the old Mahogany four poster after thoroughly dusting it off, and then practically hurled himself into the earth in the garden.

Remus the vampire watched as the dirt closed over the body. His body. He made no attempt to take control of the body in those last moments, when the human Remus was about to sleep, and was vulnerable. He knew how to retake the body.

He knew exactly what he would do tomorrow night.

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They had not spoken for nearly five minutes. It might seem brief to immortals who had seen thirty centuries and would probably live till the end of time, Francis mused, but he was newly wakened to the endless possibilities at his disposal, and he was not going to waste any of his time in a stuffy tomb.

"Who are you?" he asked, though he was sure he had some idea. Some few legends described a vampire just like this one, one with glowing eyes and a ruby in the middle of the forehead. The vampire looked at him with a somewhat amused expression on his face.

"I've not been gone a thousand years, and you strike my name from your fancy book of vampire legends, Alexander?" he asked, his voice seeming casual, but having a cutting edge.

"Well, there was some new material coming in," Alexander rejoined, equally cool, "and sadly, there was not enough space for you. Besides, you hardly deserved to be called a legend."

The other vampire kept his face expressionless, though his voice showed a miniscule trace of anger. "New material, you say? Oh, I see, it was that boy, wasn't it? The reason you sent me into this rotting tomb, what was his name?" the vampire asked rhetorically. Suddenly he appeared right in front of Alexander, standing inches from him and staring right into his eyes.

"Let me tell you, Alexander," he continued, staring with a gaze that would have made a lesser vampire quail but still speaking in that calm voice, "because I remember it well. Your pet project, Remus."

Alexander seemed equally unruffled. "If you had not tried to perform experiments on him, there would have been no need for this. I warned you to back away."

"And when I did not, you sent Magnus to convert him into a vampire, while you brought me here. Do you know what happened after you sent me into the tomb and sealed it up?" his voice was quiet still, but it seemed to Francis that he was a step away from exploding.

"Did you know?" he asked again, his eyes still boring into Alexander's, "that the small piece of Nur's awareness that is still awake captured me, allowed me no chance to escape. Of course you knew; that was the reason you sent me here; because you knew no other place could control me."

Nathaniel backed away then, and suddenly stomped on the floor, hard enough to break it. The floor shattered, and Francis was falling. He fell what seemed like a hundred feet, and landed on his back on some Egyptian tiles, breaking them. He was winded, and lay there stunned for a moment. Then he started to rise, but before he was even on his feet, Nathaniel was talking. Apparently he and Alexander had landed on their feet.

"For a thousand years I have been Nur's 'bodyguard.', as per the wishes of the conscious remains of his awareness. The only thing I was allowed to do was entice travelers into the pyramid, if they were within a range acceptable to the consciousness. And the travelers I got were to be the army. How? I had to drain their blood, but I was not going to give all of mine back, Nur notwithstanding.

"I gave each dying intruder a drop or two of my blood, enough to make them walking corpses, and I spent a thousand years building an army. An army you destroyed in ten minutes." He smiled thinly, bitterly as he walked into an adjoining chamber. Alexander followed him, Francis right behind them.

"I was not even allowed to go into the inner sanctum where Nur is," he said, his voice still emotionless. Francis was getting more edgy by the minute; he had no idea what Nathaniel was going to do, but it didn't seem like he would be content to show them the door to Nur's sanctum, and then fade into the darkness like an efficient butler.

"Must you bore us with your incessant list of grievances, Nathaniel?" Alexander asked in a casual tone as he followed Nathaniel down a long sloping corridor. The only sign that Nathaniel was angry or irritated was a subtle squaring of the shoulders. "I warned you that you should leave the boy alone. It did not have to come to this."

"Why did you want the boy so badly?" Nathaniel asked as he made his way further down. Francis could make out a room at the foot of the passageway.

"I had my reasons," Alexander stated simply. "Are you going to try to kill us now, or later?"

Nathaniel laughed; a laugh that would have chilled Francis's marrow if he had any.

"You misunderstand me Alexander, I am not going to lay a hand on you." He led them into the room, which was empty. At the end, two massive doors stood closed.

"Behold," Nathaniel stated simply, "the inner sanctum."

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Okay, that's the end of chapter four. I just want to add a few things that everyone who's reading this should know: There are only nine chapters in this story, so that would mean we're almost halfway through. Now some of you are probably thinking that we're moving way too fast, I mean think about it; Jessica, James and Madeline know Remy's a vampire, and he's already captured them. That's something that should come at the end of the story, isn't it? Well, be prepared for a change of pace in the story after this, and trust me, it gets more complicated than this. I've created a whole alternate world, and you're going to meet all the important characters in it. And though the story will remain mainly about Remy, it's going to branch out from there, and we'll see a lot more main characters come up.

Hope all of you people reading this are enjoying it. Please, please, please review, it's really very heartwarming. Questions? Flames? Send 'em all, and if you think I'm not clear on something, or am taking too long to update, tell me.


	5. The Story Begins

Another slow, slow update. Apologies all around, but I'm tied down a bit. Unfortunately I have other stuff to do that can't be delayed, while this can (You know the usual, tests and stuff). Anyway, I promise to put the next one up a lot sooner than I put up this one.

If anyone's still confused at this point as to who the characters are, due to the name changes, (Though God knows I tried to give enough clues to the identities), here is a collated list of the people and their powers, and distinguishing characteristics. If you still can't figure 'em out, please feel free to e-mail me, and I'll see if I can tell you who they are without getting too annoyed. Any changes/ additions to canon will be put into curly brackets.

Here's the list:

Dramatis Personae:

Remus Lebeau: Can make objects explode; can create a kinetic shield around himself. Has empathic powers, handsome, charming, with long brown hair and glowing red pupils on black eyes. Is a vampire, can use his powers to fly and make objects float, can delay explosions as he wills, is suffering from a split personality. Note: In this, Remus can use his powers from a distance, an ability he had at one point in canon. Can charge organic matter as well, in case you're confused after reading Ultimate X-men # 51.

Jessica (Last name not given): Has the ability to absorb energy, memories and mutant powers through skin contact. Has a white streak in her hair and a southern accent she tries to hide.

James (Last name not given): Has an enhanced healing factor, and bone claws that can be extended upon will. Short, hairy, and grim most of the time.

Madeline Elaine Grey: Has telepathic and telekinetic powers, allowing her to read minds and move objects, brainwash people, and fly. Has red hair and green eyes, and dimples.

Alexander (Last name not given): Uses ambient solar power to power energy beams mainly emitted from his hands. Blonde haired, blue eyed. Hates his brother. Is a vampire, is the leader of Remus's coven. Can use his beam to impact against solid ground to enhance his jump, making him appear to fly.

Francis (Last name not given): Telepathic. Bald, confined to a wheelchair because he is a pacifist,and therefore refuses to drink blood. Is a vampire, is a member of Alexander's coven, is too weak to even move himself. Communicates by thought.

Nathaniel (Last name not given): Super strong, mildly telepathic, can fire energy projectiles. Has an enhanced healing factor. Has metal-like hair and very white, steely skin. Has a ruby in the middle of his forehead and glowing red eyes. Is a vampire, is being held against his will in Nur's pyramid

I hope that clears things up a bit. I'll put up any new characters introduced at the beginning of the sequel.

I also wanted to put an accumulated list of terms used in this fic, which are not part of x-men canon. The explanation, though it comes late, should help to give you a clearer idea of the abilities and limits of different people in this fic.

Terms:

Vampire: (No, seriously. Even though this term is the core of the fic, I haven't given a formal definition for it yet, so here it is): A race separate from homo sapiens and homo superior, which is created by a vampire draining the blood of either a homo sapiens or a homo superior, and making the person drink the vampires' blood. It is not yet known how the first vampire was created.

A vampire has white skin (even if he was dark skinned before he became a vampire), and eyes that are lustrous and hypnotizing. Vampire's are stronger than the other two races, and have skin that is almost impossible to pierce, and hair that is very hard to cut. They heal and move much faster than man or mutant, and can regenerate lost limbs. Daylight is lethal to them, and they burn in the sun.

Vampire's are poisoned and weakened if they drink the blood of a dead person. Strong fires can also harm them, but a stake through the heart is not lethal, and neither is garlic. Vampires only drink blood (even that of animals and birds), and feel ill if they eat or drink anything else. They are immortal unless killed by the sunlight or by a strong fire, and grow in strength and all other attributes as they drink more blood, becoming more powerful as they age. They sleep from dawn to dusk, and if attacked in their sleep, they unconsciously defend themselves, perhaps by choking the assailant, but without waking up.

A vampire that does not drink blood weakens steadily, and may eventually fall into a semi-catatonic state. The period where the vampire does not drink blood is called starvation. A vampire that drinks after a period of starvation increases in power by a large amount, more than he would have had he been drinking throughout the same period. Not every vampire is a mutant, though the majority are, and it is suspected that the x-gene is linked to the power one has as a vampire.

Upon Turning (into vampires,) most internal organs dissolve away, such as the stomach and intestines, and in females, the uterus and the rest of the reproductive system. Female vampires therefore do not have the ability to have children, though the males can. However, they can only have offspring by coupling with female humans, or mutants, and the children born of this union are freaks, usually disfigured and always insane. Therefore, making love to a woman is punishable by death, though this is usually avoided as the male vampire is castrated (by law), before being Made a vampire.

(Whew. I hope that covers all of it.)

Coven, and coven leader: A group of vampires' residing in one place under a mutual leader is called a coven. They are linked together through a series of rituals that connect them to the leader. The coven stays in the same place, and feeds from its territory, not encroaching on the territory of other covens. Usually, the number is limited to about three or four vampires' in a coven, because more vampires' mean too much of a strain on their food source: humans.

The coven leader is decided before the rituals by vote, and has special powers as a result of the ritual. He can read the minds of his coven members (no-one else), and know their locations (within a certain distance from him), or their general locations, if they are far from him. At very close distances, such as half a foot from his body, he can actually control the body of a member of his coven. This is to prevent attacks on him by them. Only the coven leader is allowed to kill vampires', and those too only from his coven, if he wants. Disputes between members of a coven are decided by the coven leader, and disputes between covens are decided by a meeting of the respective leaders, or by the council of Elders (or the council of Ancients).

Hatchling, Fledgling, Vampire, Elder, Ancient: Names given to a vampire, depending upon his power and ability. (To be explained in detail later on).

Terms referring to the creation of a vampire: Capitalizations, such as Born, Born into Darkness, Made, Created, Turned (or Turning). (eg, 'when I was Born' – means, 'when I was made a vampire').

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If that introduction wasn't big enough, here's the chapter, the biggest one in the story. Heh. I hope you like it. As always, review, please. It keeps me going.

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When Jessica opened her eyes, the sun was shining on her face. She turned to her side, and saw Madeline's face. Behind Madeline, James lay snoring. They were all on a bed, and the sun shone in her face because most of the roof was missing.

Dimly she realized she wasn't in the hotel room. As she remembered the events that had taken place the night before, she burrowed in the bed, as if it would provide some sanctuary against Remus. Then she remembered that a vampire would be killed by the sun, so she and her friends were safe for the moment. She glanced at her watch, realizing that sunset was only two hours away. She had slept – had been put to sleep for over ten hours.

She looked around the place then, realizing that this was the mansion Remus had told her about. If he hadn't lied about that as well, she thought bitterly. She got out of bed, having decided that she needed to find an escape route.

She went to the top first, making her way up stairs filled with grime and broken in places. Cautiously, she climbed to what was left of the roof. She could see into the bedchamber below, where Madeline and James were still sleeping. Reaching the edge of the roof, she peered over the parapet.

As she saw the empty acres stretching out and the lights of Paris so far away and indistinct as to be a memory or trick of the imagination, and as she noticed the lack of any automobiles around, she knew that Remus would capture them if they ran. Having no options left, she went down to wake James and Madeline and ask them what they thought.

After they were woken, and had recovered their wits to a certain extent, Jessica asked them what they thought must be done.

"I can fly," Madeline said, her tone making it sound so natural that she might have claimed to breathe, "but I can't take all three of us out of here."

"Save Jess if you can," James said, "but get out of this haunted house. Please, Maddy."

"I won't go without you," she said resolutely.

"I can absorb her power," Jessica offered, "but I don't know if I can control it enough to avoid knocking her out, or how long I will be able to use it to fly. I wouldn't want to crash in mid-air."

James shook his head. "If we find the vampire, we can kill him," he said, "he must be here somewhere. We can expose him to the sun."

"What if he isn't here?" Madeline asked. James replied with the curtest answer he had given her.

"You can operate on that theory, and sit here twiddlin' yer pretty toes. Me an' Jess got work to do." He headed out the door. "Comin', Jess?" he called over his shoulder. Jessica followed him, as did Madeline with an amused smile on her face.

A search of all the twenty odd rooms revealed no coffins or false floors under which a vampire could sleep. The sun was sinking into the west when James suggested that they get into the garden so there would be room to manoeuvre, instead of being confined in a room. He was going to try and take Remus down.

They left the house, and stood in the garden, avoiding the vines and weeds that infested the place. The tension in the air was palpable. As was the smell of decay. Overwhelmed by the stench, Jessica was just about to suggest that they head inside, when a hand burst from the soil. She couldn't hold back a scream, and was joined by Madeline, as James swore.

"Sonofabitch! He was in the garden! The bloody garden!"

Remus then pulled himself out of the soil and looked at them, brushing his clothes off.

"Come inside," he said, as cordially as if he was the host at a Christmas party, and not a bloodthirsty vampire about to kill them.

When they made no move, he sighed.

"I'll lead the way, since you don't trust me behind you. But please, do come on in, I know you cannot stand the stink of rotting vegetation." He lit up a torch then, and disappeared into the house.

Hesitantly, Jessica moved to follow him. James caught her arm, but she continued moving.

"He can kill us any time he chooses," she said, her voice hollow, "so we might as well go where he wants us to. It won't make any difference what we do."

So saying, she walked into the house. James and Madeline hesitated for only a second before following her.

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Alexander was examining the door, as Nathaniel waited nearby, a sinister smile on his face. He knew something not even Alexander did, and he was waiting for Alexander to find out – in the worst way possible.

He had said that he was not going to attempt to kill them, and Francis for one believed him. He had someone far worse in mind.

It did not make sense to Francis though. Nathaniel had not a hope of convincing Nur to kill Alexander; Nur did as he saw fit, and nothing could stop him, and almost nothing could change his mind. Something else was afoot, and he could not begin to guess what it was.

Alexander had finally stopped examining the door. He backed away slightly, then raised his right hand, pointing it at the center of the massive doors. He appeared to be charging up.

"Have you not wondered, Alexander," Nathaniel said suddenly, "like I have, of what happened to some of our vampire family? The coven we had, with Nur as our leader? Some were burnt to death when he decided to cull us, but some escaped."

"Four of us," Alexander said, his eyes still locked on the door, "and all accounted for."

"Yes, four," Nathaniel said, still smiling. "But not all accounted for."

Alexander looked at Nathaniel then, for a few brief seconds, his face growing angry. Then he turned his gaze and his anger on the door, blasting it apart. Then he stared into the chamber inside, the anger draining out of his face.

"Do you see what I see?" asked Nathaniel, his voice low, as he made his way to Alexander's side. He stood there for a moment, and then he started to laugh softly.

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Remus led the way to the room where he had left Jessica and the others. He waited until they had caught up to him, then he walked to the wall opposite the door, raising his torch and searching for the crack. When he found it, he simply kicked the wall in. There was no need for him to use the hidden lever; he would not use this place ever again.

He made his way into the secret room that had been revealed, the others following cautiously. The room was about ten feet wide and sixteen feet across, and was empty except for a few normal chairs against the side walls and a large throne-like one at the end. This was the place that had been used as a meeting and hiding place during the time of the French revolution, when the coven-house was subjected to daytime raids.

First, he lit all the twenty or so candles which stood in their holders, attached to the side walls, then Remus made his way to the large chair at the end and sat down on it, for the first time in his life. It had been Alexander's chair all those hundreds of years ago. As he watched the three hesitatingly take seats, he idly wondered what Alexander was doing.

Outwardly, though, he gave about as much sign of life as a marble statue, chin resting on his clasped hands, staring at the floor. After about a minute or two of silence, James, impatient as always, could not take it anymore.

"Well, are you gonna kill us already? I'm dyin' ta gut ya."

"I haven't brought you here to kill you," Remus said, still staring at the floor, "I hope you realise I could have done that at any time during the past two nights."

They obviously didn't believe him, nor did he expect them to. Madeline, however, asked him the question that was on all their minds.

"Why have you brought us here then, Remus? If that is actually your real name."

Remus raised his head then, staring dully at her.

"I brought you here, because the truth must be told. I need to have my story told, I need to tell you how I was made a vampire, what my life has been like."

Remus got up off the chair and walked up to Jessica. She flinched, and James growled, but he simply bent down in front of her. She did not look at his face, but instead looked at the floor. James stuck out his claws, but Remus ignored him and spoke quietly, his voice intent.

"You hate me now, Jessica, but you do not know the complete story. Let me tell you exactly what I am, let me tell you how I came to be this way. I want you to know who you hate. I just want you to understand me." He wasn't using his empathy, and so it surprised him to see tears in her eyes as she raised her head. She nodded slowly, and Remus felt intensely relieved. It was better if she hated what he really was, instead of what she thought him to be.

"Stay on the other side o' the room," James growled. Remus nodded, and ran to the other side of the room faster than their eyes could see, making it look like he had teleported there. He did it to show James what a foolish precaution it was.

"I was born in the year ten-eighteen," he began, pausing for a second as they gasped in astonishment.

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"My father owned this mansion. A manor it was then, and he was a nobleman. I never saw much of him when I was growing up; I was the youngest, and he was forever out hunting with my brother's, or attending parties by other nobles, or occasionally overseeing the planting of crops.

"The only time we were a family was at dinnertime. Then, my father would sit at the head of the table, my mother on his right and my eldest brother on his left, and the rest of the family in the remaining spaces, according to age. There were five of us, three brothers and than a sister older than I. At dinnertime, we would be a family, for a few minutes, and then we would go our separate ways. I was normal then, with my eyes a light brown colour.

"My mother kept to herself, unlike my father who I rarely saw because he was always out, my mother would stay inside her room for hours at a time with her books. She was the only one out of us all who could read. It was not unusual that none of us could read, but this being the medieval period, it was unusual that she, as a woman, could.

"She had come from Paris proper, and she was the daughter of a Parisian nobleman, much more important than my father, whose manor was a week away from Paris as the coach travels.

"My father was not important enough to have his own army of knights, and I believe this was one of the reasons our mother withdrew from us and stayed with her books. She was married to my father for convenience, since he was essentially a farmer with a title, her father would not have to worry about his army starving.

"But she performed her duty to her husband, giving him an heir and several spares, and then quietly faded from his life, giving him a wide berth while he went about carousing and womanizing.

"My elder brothers' were all the same in character; describing one would give an accurate description of all. Essentially, they liked to spend their mornings hunting, their evenings drinking, and their nights with various women. In those times, it was the accepted norm, and the villages that my father owned would provide women, willingly or unwillingly, but always hoping that there would be love, followed by marriage.

"There was no chance of that, of course; my brothers' were too callous to treat the women like women, and even if one of them would have fallen in love, he would have been cast out by my father.

"My sister on the other hand, was the darling of the family. Our nucleus, you might say, keeping us all together. Her bright blue eyes and perpetual smile was the only thing that would make my brother's and father lay aside their plans for a night of debauchery, and spend time with the family. It was only she that could pry my reticent mother out of her shell. For the first ten years of my life, she was my constant companion. We watched the flight of the birds, the villagers working in the fields; we laughed and played together in the garden."

Remus paused for a second as James fired a question.

"You've made out yer dad an' yer brothers ta be these drunken gimps, but what about you? I won't believe you didn't do any o' those things if the rest of yer family did."

Remus smiled easily, "well, I didn't do those things," he said, then at the look on James's face, added, "I see you don't believe me. But rest assured it would have been impossible for me to go about whoring, because at this time of my life I was ten years old.

"As I was saying, it was only my sister that kept us together as a family. Even at the age of ten, I hated my life. Effectively I had no father or mother. My brothers were slightly more accommodating; they occasionally acknowledged my existence, and took me hunting with them.

"I wasn't allowed to hunt, of course, because I was too young, and because the one time I had been allowed to shoot with the longbow had been the time none of my brothers had gotten a kill, and as a joke they had let me try to use the longbow. Barely being able to pull the string back a foot, I had still hit a partridge. No one likes being stood up by their brother, and so that was the last hunting trip for me.

"Shortly afterwards, I was sent to a monastery, in the hopes that I would be the salvation for the whole male side of my family, who had mutually volunteered me into the service of God.

"The monastery was not all that bad at first; there were people who spoke to me, actually acknowledged my existence. They were all kind people, the monks there. They taught me how to read and write, and I found it really nice simply because it gave me something to do, as well as opening up a wealth of information. But I quickly grew tired of the reading because there was not much to read except for the Bible and commentaries on it. Mass printing had not been invented, and the only texts around were religious ones. I freely admit I was not pious enough to have them sustain my interest for long.

"I stayed at the monastery for five or six years, but I experienced no sudden elevation of morals. It was at this time that I received news that my sister had died. Without consulting anyone, I ran away from the monastery and returned home.

"I stood in the bushes near the house, watching her being carried out. It was the custom to have the body uncovered, instead of hidden in the coffin. Her body was placed on a bier instead of in a coffin, but it had been covered with a blanket until only her head was showing. I remember how her blonde hair framed her pale face. Her eyes were closed and she seemed at peace. I stood there watching her, feeling a well of grief inside me. I was weeping openly. My parents were crying as well, and even my brothers, manly men, looked like they would soon begin blubbering.

"Suddenly a stabbing wind howled in from the west, whipping the blanket off her body. My grief turned to shock and horror as I saw the scratch marks that had been made on her throat. Her hands were scratched as well, and if the body had not been clothed, scratch marks would have been seen there as well.

"I rushed to my family then, ignoring their expressions of shock at seeing me return without warning. I asked them about the scratch marks, and was told that she had been killed by a pack of wolves that had somehow raided our manor. At that time, I was young and foolish enough to think that wolves actually had dared come so close to our manor house, ignoring all the villages surrounding us. It was afternoon then, and I rushed to the armoury to pick up a battleaxe and a longbow, weapons I had not touched since I was only ten, and even then barely once or twice, weapons I had not a chance of mastering in the next few hours. I collected my brother's hunting dogs, two big mastiffs, and I chased off in the direction the wolves were supposed to have come from, my father and brothers shouting after me to stop. But there was blood on my mind, and I knew I would return a wolfslayer, or not return at all.

"As I rode through the fields, I could only remember my sister's laugh, her voice. We were the closest, you see, and it had been she who had most strongly opposed my entrance to the monastery. I had no secrets from her, and she had none from me. She had been only twenty when the wolves came, and it was this that spurred me to the most anger. I knew of course, that she and I would not always be together; she would get married and go away, or die after a long illness as was often the case in medieval France, but it was the suddenness of her demise that gave rise to the most violent emotions in me."

Remus was looking at the floor, and he suddenly realized blood was dripping on to it from his eyes. His tears. Even after nearly a thousand years, the memory of his sister was vivid. He looked up, and saw that James appeared unmoved, as did Jessica, but Madeline's eyes were glistening; she showed her emotions more freely.

"Why do you cry?" Remus snarled, baring his teeth at all three of them. "I am still a monster, a blood drinker. I do not expect you to change your judgement of me, for it is a fair judgement. I just want you to know what you are judging," he looked at Jessica, his voice almost a whisper, "what you are condemning." Then he straightened up, continuing his narrative.

"It was approaching evening when I reached the forest where the wolves den was. I travelled for about another hour before the dogs at my side growled and my horse whinnied softly with fright. I pressed on forward, knocking the arrow and flexing the drawstring. After twenty yards or so I could make out vague shapes, and glowing yellow eyes. I made my horse trot on, forcing her into a straight canter, when all she wanted to do was run like hell itself were after her. Eventually, we rode out into a clearing about twenty five yards wide. At the end was a tumble of rocks, effectively blocking an escape. I let the wolves materialise in front of me, four of them, then I let go of my dog's leashes.

"The first shot I fired fell two feet wide of the mark, and it was so shaky that it would have not penetrated the wolves' hide. And then, I could not let off another shot as my dogs met the wolves.

"Perhaps it was lucky for me that they both attacked the same wolf, killing it before the pack closed upon them. The pack only suffered a broken bone on one of the remaining wolves before they finished off the dogs and turned their attention to me. At the time I could only vaguely notice that they looked well-fed rather than starving; which made it hardly likely that they would pass through a line of villages before coming to the manor.

"But as I said, I pondered on this later. Much later. At that point, I was occupied with the much higher priority of saving my life. In my heart I had given up hope; the hounds had been my only defence. So there I stood, and I thought of my sister. Determined to avenge her before I died, I stood in the saddle, another arrow knocked, and as I steadied it with my hand, I noticed it was glowing. Glowing, like my rage. I released it, watching it course straight into the body of a wolf. Suddenly the wolf seemed to explode internally, a surprised expression on its' face, and smoke emanating from its' ears. It then collapsed unseeing onto the dirt of the forest floor.

"The two remaining wolves' recognised my projectiles as a threat and charged me. I was still sitting in my saddle, stunned at the explosion. This was the first time my mutant powers had manifested themselves. As they charged, my horse took matters into her own hands.

"She smashed the skull open of one of them, but the other bit her hamstring, bringing her crashing down. I was thrown clear, and lay winded, watching as the wolf cut my horse open. My battleaxe had landed beside me though, and I picked it up, at that moment using it more as a crutch than a weapon.

"As soon as I had recovered sufficiently, I charged the wolf, swinging wildly. Wolves' however, are smart, and this one dodged easily, bringing his jaws in to snap me on my backswing. I realized he was toying with me, wearing me down until I dropped my weapon out of sheer exhaustion. Then he would attack.

"Eventually he drove me up the rocks, my swings becoming more lagged. I tried to make the battleaxe glow like I had with the arrow, but to no avail. I finally sat down, the battleaxe lying across my lap. The wolf was smart, but not too smart, as he chose this moment to attack, instead of making sure I was really out of the fight. As he jumped, I swung my axe, disembowelling him. I dropped my axe wearily as I looked around and saw all four wolves' had been killed.

"Then, above the sound of falling blood, I heard a growl. I looked behind me, and saw a wolf much bigger than the other four. He was apparently the leader of the pack, and had been watching the course of the battle from the shadows. With no further warning he leapt at me.

"I grappled with him, strange as it may seem, but I had no strength or time to pick up my axe. As I held him by the neck, forcing his fangs away from my face, I felt his claws scratch deep into my body. Then I heard explosions.

"I did not know what had happened at the time, but later examination revealed that every claw on all four paws had been blown off. I didn't notice at that time because all of my dwindling strength was poured into strangling him. Unluckily for him, he had no hands to remove mine from his neck. After what seemed like hours, but was only twenty minutes or so, he finally gave up the ghost.

"I think I passed out then, and when I came to, it was because mosquitoes, attracted by the stench of blood, were biting me. Wearily I crawled to my feet, hoisted the big wolf on my shoulders and walked out of the forest.

"I think some peasant in a nearby village gave me a horse, or drove me to the manor in his cart, but I do not remember the journey home too well. I eventually walked into the manor, the wolf around my shoulders, at dinnertime. I walked up to where my father was gaping at the head of the table, slung the wolf in front of him, and said something like 'your daughter is avenged.' Then I collapsed on the floor.

"I hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness for the next several weeks. At times I saw my mother watching over me. Other times I saw my sister, so I believed I was hallucinating. But when I was well enough to take my meals and sit up in bed, my mother did come to visit me.

"She was quiet, as she always was. For several seconds she stood there, just looking at me. When I opened my eyes, she gave a little gasp. When I asked her what the matter was, she brought me a looking-glass. I stared into my red irises, and saw the whites turning blackish at the edges.

" 'Your father will never allow you in the house if he sees you now,' she said, and it was the first time she had shown me the slightest concern that I could remember. 'He'll think you have been transformed into a werewolf by the scratches,' she added. This being the dark ages, I believed her prediction of my father's reaction.

" 'I'm not a werewolf,' I protested, and she nodded, holding my hand as proof she still trusted me. She had not ever touched me that I could recall because she found it distasteful to touch people, and I found this gesture of hers very touching.

" 'You have to leave the house,' she said, her voice urgent, 'in a few weeks' time, when you can walk again, you must fly to Paris. Staying here means only imprisonment or death for you.' All my arguments were cast aside and ignored. I was going to see the city of Paris.

"For the next week and a half I lay bedridden, hiding my eyes whenever my father or brothers' would come to visit. By the end of the week, the red colour had become brighter, and the eyeballs solid black. I could not look in the mirror anymore because the horror that were my eyes stared back at me and convinced me that I was an abomination. I had no inkling that I was a mutant, that as my powers had manifested when I had shot the glowing arrow, my eyes had started to change. I thought I was damned by God. I wasn't, then, but I am now. And it was, as you may have guessed, because of events that took place in Paris.

"After the week and the half, my mother came to me with some money. More money than I had seen in my life. More money, I was sure, than my father had at the moment. My mother had sold some of her jewels for me. It was painful for her; each had its' own history, its' own procession down her family.

"I took the money, kissed her cheek before she could stop me, saddled my horse, and then I galloped off like a thief in the night. There were no drawn out goodbyes from me, because I might have stayed then, instead of running to save my life. As it happened, I rode throughout the night, slept in a field for an hour or two, and then rode most of the day before I stopped at one of the outer villages, arriving about two hours before sunset.

"It's been a thousand years, nearly, and I still cannot forget her. Out of the blue I swept into her life, and I carried her along with the mad rush I spent the whole of my mortal life in.

"I met her a couple of hours before sunset, my horse nearly falling into the ground with exhaustion, as I jumped out of the saddle and walked into the dusty village. It had one or two streets as I recall, and she was filling water from the small well in the middle of the village. She saw the state I was in, not long recovered from my illness, but I think it was more the poor horse she noticed, foaming at the mouth and shivering at the knees. She offered me the hospitality of her fathers' house, and my horse the village stables. I gratefully accepted, of course, and went into her house.

"After I had had some food, I helped her with her chores, which involved feeding the chickens and some other things. I had missed most of her chores since my arrival had been late in the day, and most villagers finished of their work by sunset. With my help, she finished in about an hour, and so we had plenty of time to talk."

"I had, as I mentioned earlier, spent all my adolescence in a monastery. I had had no friends when I was young, since my status as the son of the landlord-noble made me a remote and unapproachable figure in the eyes of the local youth. My only experience with the opposite gender had been a reticent mother and a sister who was so close I viewed her as an extension of myself, and not as a separate personality.

He paused, the hint of a smile appearing in his thin cheeks, remembering events that had happened around the same time as the battle of Normandy. Then he broke out of his introspection, giving the reason for his smile.

"Our conversation was most strange; I found that I could easily push aside my talkative nature, and ask her a question, which would launch her into an excited monologue, for she could chatter away as easily as I. The conversation we had lasted until dinnertime, about an hour or two, and my only contribution to it was to ask her inane questions about her family, or her dreams, or her cows while I sat there and simply looked at her, looking at the way her blue eyes lit up as she described her wish to go to Paris and marry an important nobleman someday, and the way her blonde hair caught the dying rays of the sun. She was beautiful, my Belle.

"I won't lie to you, Jessica," Remus said, looking at her. She was listening attentively to the story, and at the moment there was something tensed in the expression. James and Madeline were listening, rapt with attention. Remus bent forward and looked deep into Jessica's eyes before continuing, "After we had eaten dinner with her family, we slipped away to a hayloft and I made love to her. Jessica, if we had had a future, if there had been an 'us', I know you'd be disappointed at not being the first one. I wanted to get this out in the open." The taughtness in her face had loosened, to be replaced with an emptiness. Before he could speak further, James interrupted.

"She ain't interested where a vampire sticks his prick, bub." He snarled, and was about to add a few more words when Jessica laid a gloved hand on his forearm. He stopped, surprised.

"I'm glad you told me, Remus," she said, her face expressionless as she looked at him, "it makes it easier to dislike you."

He stared at her for a long moment, his face equally devoid of expression, then with a nod of understanding; he leaned back and picked up his narrative again.

"She was a simple country girl, and I impressed her with my blazing description of Paris, though I had never seen it before, and the much embellished description of my father, who she knew as being a mysterious, shadowy overlord. I also made up some story about my eyes, as them being a blessing from God after I had killed about ten or twenty wolves' with my bare hands. Eventually, through some fast-talking, through the course of which I likened her face to the moon and swore that there could be no room in my heart for another, she consented to come with me to the hayloft.

"When I woke in the morning, my mind, though only sixteen and immature, reasoned very correctly that if word got out of what had happened, the villagers would hang me, and if they didn't, my family certainly would. And so, with all the intelligence available to me at that moment, I made the questionable decision of waking up Belle and convincing her to fly to Paris with me.

"That decision changed my life.

"When we finally arrived in Paris about five days later, I had to support myself and my very apprehensive companion with the finite money my mother had given me, and with no skills to garner some more. I knew, as I stepped into Paris, and rented a room at a cheap hotel near the entrance, that I was in trouble.

"I could describe to you the Paris of those times, the atmosphere charged with the ringing steel of the blacksmith as he forged the weapons of war, I could describe the way the nobles avoided most places except the inner city, even though this Paris was a tiny fraction of today's Paris. I could tell you about the excitement one felt, simply to be standing there, but I could tell you all this for days and not come close to doing it justice, so I will just tell you what my life was like in that Paris.

"Belle and I, both sixteen, were married by a very confused priest, who could not figure why our family had not shown up for the wedding. I'm pretty sure he guessed we had run away, but he spoke not a word about it to anyone. It was a month of marital bliss after that, but we soon had to concentrate on growing up.

"Our money was running out. The sum which had seemed so substantial a month ago was reduced to a franc or two, enough in those days to provide with food and lodging for a week or two, but not after that. Suddenly I was forced to look for work, the most work that I had ever done in my life being the recovery of arrows when my brothers' took me hunting and left the servants behind.

"Belle quickly got accustomed to the idea of working for a living; she had been doing so for eleven years or so already. I however, could not bear the idea of manual labour. I searched aimlessly around until I found my calling in life. It was a carnival and theatre act.

"The advantage of this was that Belle and I got lodgings for a low rent. Granted the roof was straw, and the walls thin and leaky, but we were together, and we were happy. I was an acrobat in the circus, and the colour of my eyes was thought to be the result of falling too many times on my head while performing the tricks.

"I also became the star of the little theatre show a year later, and I convinced Belle with a lot of begging and pleading, to be the female lead. In those days, the theatre was not firmly established, and men performed all roles. I couldn't bear the thought of singing poetry to a man - no offence, James, you're nice and all, but I can't think of a guy that way -" - James grunted - "and I convinced Belle into making us the only theatre in Paris which had a female lead at that time.

"Unknown to Belle, I had also started a career as a pickpocket, my acrobat friends teaching me the tricks of that trade. I was really good at it, and at the end of my mortal life, I could rob a man walking alone in the street with his hands in his pockets.

"Four years passed, and we got to an acceptable level of prosperity, moving out of the straw-thatched room into a room with an actual roof. It was still one room, but we had hopes of moving into a two room house when the baby came."

"Baby?" Jessica echoed. Remus smiled sadly.

"Yes, a baby. Belle had already had a miscarriage, and we were sure that this would be the one. We had started saving up, dreaming our little dreams, envisioning a family. And then, one day, about a month after Belle's pregnancy had started, I was washing a silver chain I had 'found.' It had a large clasp, and was probably cheap quality silver, though I couldn't tell. Darkness had fallen, and Belle was outside, returning from the work she did in some nearby lesser nobleman's house.

"Silently, she came from behind me, circling my waist and startling me. She was ecstatic when I showed her the chain, and she put it on quickly. We had no mirror, and she stood in the centre of the room while I described it as well as I could to her. As I was describing it to her, however, I realised it was glowing, the same red glow that my arrow had, so long ago. This was the second manifestation of my powers.

"I screamed at her to take it off, to throw it away, I even leapt toward her. But she was too far away for me to reach, and she could not open the clasp in time." Remus paused, seeming to will himself to go on. "The explosion was loud, and I was thrown back. When I got up and rushed to Belle's side, I saw her lying there, her lower face blackened, and a hole in her chest. Her fingers had been blown off as well while she was undoing the clasp. A pool of her blood was spreading below her. Only her eyes and her hair seemed the same. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

"I was raving, maddened with grief; it was she who was calm. She asked me in a quiet voice, though it must have hurt her terribly to do so, about what had happened. I described it to her as nearly as I could, cursing myself a hundred times. I think she knew from the look in my eyes that I would kill myself, for she told me to carry on with my life, and to think of her as only a memory. I could do nothing but hold her hand and watch her life ebb away.

"After I buried her, the first thing I did was to burn the house down. That chapter of my life was closed, one way or another. I wandered around the city, barely coherent, until I found myself heading towards the river to drown myself. I was on my way when a carriage pulled up alongside. A man with a pale face and a bandana across his forehead pulled the curtain open from inside the carriage.

" 'Are you alright, monsieur?' He asked me. I think I muttered a few colourful French phrases and walked on. The carriage followed me, and the man spoke to me again.

" 'You seem troubled, monsieur,' he said, 'I see it in your eyes.'

"That made me stop short; I was sensitive about my eyes. When I looked at him, he removed the bandana, showing a ruby which seemed affixed in the centre of his forehead.

" 'There are others like you,' he said, 'and I can help them to control the strange things they do. It is my idea that this is the cause of your misery.' He waited for my nod, then spoke again. 'Come to my palace later in the night. I am the Cardinal Essex. The palace is the one at the north west side of town, not more than an hours walk from here. I will see you and treat you after dinner.' As he said that, his curtain fell, and the carriage drove on.

"I was still grieving over Belle's death, and I did not notice his name was not French, or the fact that in spite of him being a cardinal, I had not heard of him before. In the hope that I could end this curse God had put on me, I waited at a nearby hotel until I determined that he would have had dinner. Then I began walking in the direction he had indicated, and this walk was the one which changed my life.

"For some reason, the street I was on was empty. Of course, there was no electricity in those days, and most reasonable people tucked into bed by an hour after sunset, but one could always see a few people, usually beggars and thieves, around the place. This emptiness did not intrigue me; I was too caught up in thoughts of Belle to care about anything much.

"Suddenly, I felt powerful hands grab me. My neck was bent back, and teeth sunk into my throat. I felt my blood leave my veins, and I could not see anything of my attacker, except that his hair was shoulder length and white. I passed out, eventually, because my blood loss had made me weak.

"I woke up in the same alley a few minutes later, aware of a flowing in my mouth. I became aware that I was drinking my attackers' blood, and that I liked it. It was pleasure, it was ecstasy. Later I would find out that this was the only way to make another vampire, by drinking a mortal's blood to nearly the last drop, and then replacing it with the vampire's own.

"Eventually I had nearly drained him, and he detached my mouth from his wrist and staggered away, leaving me lying in the street with my mortal body dying; all my bodily fluids apart from blood and all waste matter being excreted. When this was over, ten minutes later, my mortal self had died. I was twenty-one."

Remus paused, noting the candles had burnt low. He stood up to get some more.

"What happened afterwards?" Madeline asked, her voice eager.

"I'm going to tell you," Remus said, walking out of the room at a speed they could see, "just as soon as I return."


	6. Threads That Weave and Ties That Bind

A quick Update. Therefore, nothing much I think I need to say here, except that this chapter is about half the length of the previous one, so if anyone was thrown off by the size, please don't be. Thanks to all the people who have reviewed. It's quite addictive, really.

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Alexander was looking inside the room he had opened up. He seemed stunned. From his vantage point, Francis could not make out what was inside. He tried to move closer, but without turning Alexander stopped him with a snarled, "don't come here if you value your life."

Nathaniel was smiling coldly. He moved behind Alexander until he could see what Alexander was looking at.

"Only once, right at the beginning did Nur's awareness let me glimpse this place. That first time, I was led down here, and shown the bodies I was to keep watch over, and when I saw those bodies, I knew that the means to my revenge on you was kept right there in front of me."

Francis had a good idea of what Nathaniel was talking about. He crept up behind the other two, hoping Alexander would not force him to go back. When he was near the doorframe, he peeked inside.

The room was large, and the dusty walls were covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Right in the centre of the room was the seated body of the first vampire ever Born. The body was white, as white as marble or ivory. It sat in statuesque splendour, and from the heavy layer of dust covering it, Francis could see it had not moved for a long time. His attention was diverted from the broad cruel mouth and titan shoulders by a figure on the ground at Nur's feet, the figure having the same statue-like appearance and the coat of dust. Even his hair was frozen, like individual strands of marble sculpted by a loving artist.

Though he had never seen the vampire before; Francis knew who he was. He was more famous than Nur himself - although that was probably because Nur had gone into his 'sleep' before many of the vampires walking the earth today were born – the vampire that every vampire had heard of; the only vampire that had withstood the light and searing intensity of the sun. Francis cast around in his mind for the fanciful name that had been given to the vampire, remembering it from half-forgotten conversations with Magnus.

The Immortal Cyclops.

Francis recalled the tales that told of the vampire; the ones that spoke of how his brother Alexander had lashed him to the gates outside the castle the coven lived in, and left him to burn in the sun. They also mentioned how the sun had not killed him, but burnt his body to a charcoal black, and melted an eye. An hour or so after dawn he had broken free and fled eventually to parts unknown.

The stories would have to be re-written, Francis mused. For one thing, the Immortal Cyclops's hiding place had been discovered, and for another, the twenty or so centuries he had been hidden underground had returned him to his white state. And, with the healing powers an ancient vampire has, his face showed no signs of the melting. His eye had also grown back, and he could not honestly be called a Cyclops anymore. His real name, however, had been forgotten all those years ago, and only Nur, Alexander, and perhaps Nathaniel could be able to recall it. If Cyclops himself could not recall it, he would be called 'the Immortal Cyclops' whenever he walked among the living – and the undead – again.

Francis was reflecting on the fact that only the sun, and maybe a very strong fire, could kill a normal vampire – none of the falsified stakes through the heart or garlic stuff – when Nathaniel spoke. He had walked into the room with Alexander.

"Nur cannot be woken without waking your brother first, Nur has seen to that. I think he foresaw your coming, and saw this as an excellent way to settle a three thousand year dispute. The memento will waken your brother, and not Nur himself."

"That is why I brought the telepath along." Alexander replied. "He will waken Nur directly."

Nathaniel smiled. "You are as devious as ever, Alexander," he said frostily, "but Nur has outsmarted you. If you use the telepath, Nur will indeed waken, but so will your brother, because you have to use the artefact you dredged up to channel the telepathic powers."

Alexander pushed past him and removed the artefact from the inside of his coat, setting it on the floor, motioning for Francis to come forward into the room.

"I'm looking forward to the meeting," he said shortly.

x-----x-----x

Remus entered the room softly, carrying the candles he had pillaged from other rooms. It was midnight by now, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

He put the thought out of his mind as he sat down on Alexander's chair.

He leaned back and waited, seemingly indifferent, while in actuality he was using his power to bring the food and drinks he had gotten for the three from the refrigerator the worker's had been using. His mind was occupied with the long passageways he could not see, but had to bring the trays up.

The three mortal's looked up in astonishment as a tray laden with chocolate, cold rack of lamb, bread, and a Caesar salad floated through the opening Remus had kicked in. It was followed by a tray with a couple of bottles of Red wine, four cans of beer, and two wine glasses.

The three mutants stared at the trays until they came to rest squarely on the table in the middle of the room, then they simultaneously looked at Remus. He smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, but the diet I'm on doesn't allow any of that rich stuff. Go on ahead, stuff yourselves. I'll watch."

There were no smiles of course, but they moved forward to take the food. It was midnight, and they were hungry. As they leaned forward, plates and silverware came swishing over their heads and landed in front of them, startling them. There were a couple of accusing glares at Remus before they all took their food and started eating. They were as comfortable with him as he could expect them to be, they knew for certain that he would not kill them until the tale was completely told. After that, they would see. He waited until they finished eating, ten minutes later, and apologized for the cold dinner. Then, leaning back comfortably, like he himself had just eaten a tasty heavy meal, he continued with the story. They leaned forward unconsciously, to catch the full effect of the varying nuances of his voice.

"And now for the second part of my tale," he began, "my vampire life."

x-----x-----x

"It was painful even to move, and there was this desperate hunger in me. Slowly I got up off the street, barely thinking rationally. I could not even identify the thirst that seemed to be flowing through my veins. I half walked, half staggered to the wall of a nearby shop, and sagged against it.

"I leaned there wondering what had happened to me. I looked at my hands, and I saw they had become very white, not as white as they are now, but even back then there was a marked difference.

"I cursed then, softly, as I saw my hands, and in doing so, I cut my tongue on my teeth, something that had not happened since I had been about five or six years old. I wanted to see what alteration had taken place, so I looked around and saw a puddle nearby. I ran towards it and arrived at it in about half the time I would have normally, and for a second I stood there wondering what I had done. Then I bent my head to look into the puddle and see what changes had befallen me.

"I noticed immediately that my eyesight was much better, as I could make out every feature of my face in the darkness lit only by a few torches. My canine teeth had sharpened, and it was on one of them that I had cut my tongue. With considerable astonishment I noticed that my tongue had also healed. My hair also seemed thicker, fuller, more lustrous, but I hardly noticed it because I was staring at my eyes in horror.

"What had once been simply black now looked like an abyss sucking light from its surroundings. My irises, red when I was human, were filled with a strange crimson glow that pulsed and flickered as my dismay waxed and waned. Every vampire's eyes reflect the emotion their owner is feeling by changing in shade and hue as I was to find out later, but at that moment I would have probably gone mad from the terror I felt had I stared at them any longer."

Madeline interrupted him. "Er, Remus, your eyes are red and all, but they aren't scary. They don't seem too intimidating. Um, just thought you'd want to know."

He smiled at her, eyes a muted red, "I've been keeping them that way, actually, Madeline, for the benefit of you three. You people would not want to look at them as they really are, as they can be."

"Can you show us what they're really like?" Madeline asked, her face eager.

"Maybe you shouldn't, Maddy," James interjected. "If you get a heart attack an' all, I'd haveta try an' kill this guy." He was serious, Remus mused, as he nodded to Madeline to tell her he would show her what his eyes truly looked like. He bowed his head down and closed his eyes, relaxing all the conscious and unconscious restraints he had put on them. Then he jerked his head upward, opening his eyes and mouth as well, in the snarl he used before he went for a victim's jugular.

Both the girls screamed, and James jerked up in his chair. After the first shock, they all averted their gaze, and Jessica sagged in her chair, holding her heart, while Madeline hugged James fiercely. Remus looked in a mirror in the room to see what the effect had been like.

The black part of his eye he had described was, as he had said, drawing the light from all around it, but even it could not dull the luminescence with which his irises shown, brighter than he had ever remembered. They were roaring scarlet fires that seemed to reach out of his face to burn onlookers. His face looked maniacal in that moment, with the glowing eyes, as well as the protruding fangs between his bloodless lips. His face was the face of a demon. The face.. of a vampire.

And there was no changing that.

He waited for a few moments, letting the girl's compose themselves, then he picked up the thread of his tale again.

"As I was saying, and as you just saw, my eyes were horrifying. I ran about in delirium, wanting to scratch my face, running into an alleyway where a beggar had made his bed.

"I fell across the beggar, not having seen him in my dementia, but as soon as I heard the beat of his heart – for indeed my hearing was keener too – I pounced on him, drinking his blood without even thinking about the monstrosity of the sin I had committed. I drank and drank until there was no blood in him, and then I lurched up. The taste of blood had been ecstasy, and I wanted more, like a virgin does. Thinking no clearly than before, I ran towards a butcher shop I spied near the end of the street. After my initial horror I did not pause for once to wonder what had happened to me, what I was doing, what was wrong with me that I took such pleasure in killing. I knew only that I needed blood.

"The door to the butcher's shop burst easily. I concede that it could have done that because of the cheap quality of the timber, as opposed to the massive strength I had acquired, but I doubt it.

"I don't want to describe what happened in there in great detail, but I will tell you that I drank all the blood from the meat – mind you, there wasn't too much because cold storage was not discovered then – and I happily realised that old blood would help me last if no fresh blood was around.

"After I had drunk the blood from the carcasses, I killed and drained the butcher's dog of all his blood."

Remus paused, watching the look of revulsion on all three faces. "I am what I am," he said coldly, "I didn't ask for it, I didn't want it, but I try to do the best I can." James looked like he was about to say something, but Remus held up a hand. "I'm continuing the story," he said, "if you have any snide remarks to make, jot them down and tell me later. I want to get this done with today."

"I roamed the streets aimlessly," (he continued) "until I experienced a queasy sensation in my stomach, like one gets when he knows something bad is about to happen. I did not realise what it was then, but I knew that I had to hide from something. The sun did not strike me as a threat because I had not been brought up on stories of vampires and ghosts unlike the simple peasants. It also was about an hour away from dawn, and the sky was still pitch black. In those early days, I could not even wait around to see the yellowing clouds; that was how weak I was.

"I knew instinctively that I had to hide, and I wisely chose to do it in one of the few houses of that time which had a basement. I went to sleep after latching the door to the basement shut, knowing only that my privacy must not be intruded upon, and that I hide as far underground as I possibly could.

"I awoke the next day, at about an hour after sunset. It was only then that the full horror of what I had done hit me. I spent a few minutes crying in the darkness, and then I felt all emotion leave me.

"I rose out of my hiding place and walked outside. When I looked at my hands in the flickering torchlight of nearby fires, I saw they were covered in blood, and I did not feel scared. I noted coldly that I cried tears of blood, and that was that. Then I went along silently, looking for victims.

"As I walked, I thought of my predicament, of how I had killed Belle, and I felt no shock or remorse. None at all. It all seemed so distant as to be the life of another man."

Remus looked intently into their eyes. He grinned humourlessly. "This is the important part," he said, "you people might want to consider running after what I tell you."

"The reason for this sudden dying out of emotion was the development of an alter ego. This alter ego was the vampire, the emotionless killing machine. He existed only to continue his life, by murdering others, and he found pleasure only in the act of killing. I initially thought he had come into existence because Magnus, my creator, had been in a royal fit of detached uncaringness when he made me, and had somehow transferred that detachment onto me.

"I had thought that even a few weeks ago, but then I realised that it had not been Magnus who had made me a distant, uncaring vampire, but it was my own mind which had created such a personality. The sole purpose of this personality had been to withstand any emotional shock without a scar."

James interrupted. "I'm confused," he growled, his tone indicating that it was Remus's fault, that Remus had not done his best to make them understand.

"I was going to kill myself," Remus clarified, "if not because of the monster I had become, then certainly because of what I had done to Belle. This new personality did not care about anything, and so he took over, putting me in the background."

Madeline interjected, eyes wide, "So, so you're – you're –" she stopped for a second, incredulous, "a schizophrenic?" Remus nodded.

"So are you, are you the cold-blooded killer, or the happy-go-lucky mortal?" she asked, then stopped suddenly, eyes widening further, as if something had been made very clear to her. After a second she spoke in an embarrassed, empty-headed voice, "I guess we wouldn't be alive if you were the emotionless killer, right?" James shook his head at the naiveté of the question.

Remus nodded mechanically, his concentration fixed on the telepathic message Madeline had fired at him under cover of her seemingly brainless blunder.

So you're the long-lost human, huh? I'm willing to bet you actually are in love with Jessica, and I'm willing to bet that it was she who made you realise this reason for the split personality. I'm also betting that you've recovered from Belle's death and your split personality isn't needed anymore. Am I right?

Correct on all counts, Madeline he thought back, then without waiting for another moment he began the story again.

"Anyway, as I was saying, this new personality completely submerged my old one, and for almost all of my entire vampire life, I, the person speaking to you at this moment, was a small part of the vampire's personality, and I didn't know that I had been a whole human being once.

"I can now recall having unconsciously made some suggestions, such as implanting the desire to kill Magnus because I felt he had done this to me, but on the whole, I was mute, remote, playing, if you will, the role of the vampire Remus's conscience. It was a small role, at that.

"Anyway, continuing with the story, by the time a few days had passed after my mortal death, I was completely submerged by the vampire Remus. Through the eyes of this vampire, I saw all the kills he made, the ruthless efficiency with which he disposed of the evidence. To avoid any confusion, I'll refer to this period in my life as being witnessed by me, and not the vampire, but I want you all to remember just who was in the driving seat.

"After a few days, I figured out that I needed to hide from the sun, that I needed blood to live, that all my senses were keener than before. For a few weeks, killing was the only thing I consciously thought about. Then I began wondering, were there others like me? I searched and searched throughout what Paris was at that time, but I found no others like me. At that time, I did not even know what to call myself.

"Eventually, about a year later, I left the city, chose a random road, and began following it. In later years, I realised that someone had been directing my movements from the time I had become a vampire, but at that time, I thought of taking that particular road as a chance fluke.

"I had travelled for a few days, when I came across an old castle. Fires were lit around it, and with my sensitive ears I could hear the sounds of laughter and merriment coming from inside the walls. Without knowing it, I had discovered my first and only vampire coven.

"A vampire coven is a collection of any vampires' in the nearby region. A good-sized coven can have about five to ten members; any more in one area leads to a severe shortage of food after a short time, as you can imagine. The coven has a leader, and the leader can command every aspect of the other vampires' lives. He is usually the oldest, and is the only vampire allowed to kill another vampire, if he thinks it best for his coven, but the vampire he kills must be from his own coven. The leader can give orders to the other vampires', but he mostly leaves his coven to do as they will, only stopping them from getting out of hand on occasion.

"So, I made my way towards the castle, not knowing that these were vampires', not knowing that my presence had been monitored since I had left Paris, not knowing that there was a vampire feast going on. I also did not know that if I had been mortal, I would have been carried off as a feast to the castle by now.

"So, I made my way to the castle, thinking that a party meant plenty of people I could surreptitiously drain, a few mouthfuls from each – the little drink - so that I would have my fill without the inconvenience of murder.

"I made my way to the castle, knocked on the doors', and was admitted inside. What I saw there surprised even my aloof vampire self.

"I stood inside the passageway, looking into the main hall. There were about seven or eight vampires there, and of them all save two were gorging themselves on young men and women – from the nearby villages, I judged by their clothes – while the other two looked at me.

"One was an angry-faced man. He had shoulder length blonde hair, and pale blue eyes. He had been about twenty eight or so when he had been made, frozen forever at that age. The other, I recognized as the person who had made me a vampire. He had long white hair, the greyest blue eyes I had seen, and the bearing of a king, though I must say the other was no less regal. I guessed him to be about fifty or sixty – a ripe old age back then.

"The old me wanted to kill him right there, even though I would in all probability be destroyed before even hurting him; but the new me just stood there, as still and impassive as those two. For about a minute or two, we just stared at each other, then the white haired vampire spoke to the other.

" 'Was this really such a good idea, Alexander?' he asked, his voice so low I could barely make out what he had said. Alexander nodded curtly to him and walked towards me, with the ghost of a smile on his face. In all the years since I have known him, that half-smile was the closest he came to looking happy. Something in his psyche prevents him from feeling any joy whatsoever."

"Prevents him? As in prevents him right now?" James interposed. Remus nodded, smiling.

"He's very much alive, James. Oh, don't look so disturbed; vampires are very much a part of the modern world. You didn't think I was the only one around, did you? Cheer up man, most of the vampires' alive today were Born within the past two hundred years. Not too many of the old ones are still around. They just get morbid after a while; it seems their lives have no purpose, no direction. There's just killing to stay alive for no reason at all. Eternal life can be quite boring, you realise. So these old vampires' just go off and kill themselves when they can't take it anymore, by the heat of a fire, mostly. Not too many have the guts to stay in the sun. So if you meet any vampire on the street, he won't be too powerful." Remus paused, peering at James. "James, have another beer, you're looking positively pale." He waited until James had emptied a can, which took about three seconds, and then resumed the narrative.

"So, as I was saying, he was smiling, and he came with his arms slightly outstretched – stiffly, mind you – and he spoke some words of welcome to me. The white haired vampire came behind him and stood there until my welcome was finished, then he said,

" 'You know I made you what you are without your consent. Why are you not angry?'

" 'Anger serves no purpose,' I replied, with the absence of emotion that had become my hallmark. They exchanged quick glances, and I thought I detected some astonishment emanating from them. I'm not sure about that, of course; they were much too powerful to let anyone detect their emotions.

" 'My name is Alexander,' said the blonde haired vampire, 'and this is the leader of our coven, Magnus. Come; let me introduce you to the others.' He led me into the dimly lit main hall, where the other vampires were having their feast. Because of the presence of only one or two torches, I could not make out their features too clearly.

"He led me around, telling me their names. There were the men, Mikhail and Piotrvich, brothers, and the women, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Moira. They were all mutants except for Moira."

"There are non-mutant vampires?" James asked. Remus nodded.

"Some are," he said, "but most vampires tend to be mutants, because the x-gene seems to facilitate the process by which a vampire grows in power over time. I can tell you that I myself can take on and kill a twenty-five hundred year non-mutant vampire. It's Darwin's survival of the fittest, actually. A non-mutant vampire is much weaker than a mutant vampire, just as a human is weaker than a mutant.

"Anyway, there they were, all gorging themselves, pausing only to look at me and nod for a second before getting back to their feasting. There was one vampire however, who was not drinking like the others. He was lying like a broken doll in the corner. I asked about him, and was told that his name was Francis, and that he had never drunk blood in his life, except for when he had been made. At that time he could move around a bit, but he preferred to lie quietly."

"What happened to all of them?" Madeline asked.

"I'll tell you as I go on with the story," Remus replied, "and if you people keep interrupting, it'll take till tomorrow or the day after. I want it to finish by today, okay?" he paused, waiting for their nods of acceptance. "Good. Just bear with me here. I'll be telling you a condensed version of the events that took place."


	7. Breakdown

At the start of this chapter, I just want to say;

Thanks to all the people who reviewed this story, especially Ishandahalf, Enchantedlight, EE's Skysong, Chica De Los Ojos Café, Roguechere and Silkyblack,

because it feels really good to know people like what you're doing. And doubly good when they keep reviewing. :D . If you're reading this story (which you are, duh,) please, please let me know what you think. Good, bad, ugly, or plain evil (like a vampire), whatever, just let me know!

. . . okay, now on with the story. . .

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"I took part in the remainder of the feast," Remus continued without a hint of shame or self-reproach, "and after the feast Magnus officially introduced me to the others as a new coven member. I had not been consulted, but I would not have refused anyway. I had nowhere else to go and I knew no others of my kind.

"It took about a week to get settled. I learnt many interesting things about vampires and my coven, such as that the creator of all vampires' was the visionary Nur, who had lived in ancient Egypt, about four or five thousand years ago. His last coven had included Alexander, Magnus, and two other people, one of whom was the person who had come to me on the night I had become a vampire.

"I was as surprised then as you are now Madeline, when I found out that the man who had offered to help me was a vampire. Nathaniel was his name, and it seems he had disobeyed some command in doing so. He was locked up in the tomb of Nur by Alexander for his pains, and as far as I know, he is still there.

"The other vampire was perhaps the most famous one amongst us. He was Alexander's brother. He had been put in the sun by Alexander about a thousand years before my birth, but had somehow survived it and escaped."

"Why was he put in the sun?" Madeline asked.

"You might be surprised by what I tell you at the end of it," Remus said, looking at her, "He had committed one of the two unforgivable crimes, having a child with a human woman. The other, by the way, is killing another vampire.

"The child was disfigured and mentally disabled, as all children from such a union are – the reason for it being a crime, you see. Anyway, Alexander found out about it, and he had his brother chained to the gate of the castle, although his brother managed to make his lover and her child escape, somehow evading five or six vampires.

"I can kind of read minds you see, and when Alexander was telling me this, he let his guard down enough to allow me a glimpse of his brother and his lover and the child. Now this is the part which might surprise you. The woman I saw looked exactly like you."

A deep silence greeted his words.

"So this is why you asked me about the name Jean?" asked Madeline finally.

"Yes," Remus replied, "but I don't think you grasp the significance of this. If you are indeed a descendent of Jean and her son, as soon as Alexander finds out about you, he'll kill you."

Some of the colour left Madeline's cheeks. To have a friend loved by a vampire was one thing, but to be on the 'hit-list' of a vampire was another matter entirely.

"If yer makin' this up," James snarled, extending his claws and waving them about, "I'm gonna gut ya." He curled a clawed arm around Madeline, who shrank back from the extended bones.

"Think with your brain, James," Remus replied coldly, "Not with your balls. I'm telling the truth. I should also add that it was lucky that Alexander left for Egypt on the same evening you people arrived, or he would have found out by now about you, and all three of you would be incinerated, and me as well, probably. Alexander doesn't like this human side of me.

"Calm down, all of you, and listen to my story now, because he won't be back in the next couple of days.

"I think you people have noticed that I'm saying 'Alexander did this' and 'Alexander did that', while having mentioned that Magnus was the leader of the coven. Apparently Alexander had been leader of the coven until his rash anger in chaining his brother without telling any of the others and letting them confirm the business of the lover and child. Because of this, he was asked to step down and choose a successor. He chose Magnus, who had been made by him. Magnus was five hundred years younger, and he was a visionary like Nur was. He spent all his time plotting for the greater glory of the vampire race, not realising we are meant to be creatures' of the shadows. As a result of his preoccupation, Alexander was able to control him easily. It had been his suggestion that I be made a vampire, for reasons I still do not know.

"I also found out something about the vampires' there. All the men were castrated, save Alexander." James made an indelicate sound and surreptitiously moved his hands near his groin, while the girls looked disgusted. Remus continued, smiling slightly at James's reaction. "This was a law Alexander had passed after his brothers' child. All the old vampires' could not have the deed done to them because their organs grow back over time, but any new vampire made had to have it done to him. Female vampires' cannot conceive, and so they were left alone."

"So you're – you're," Jessica said, for a second not looking at his face, but at the space between his legs, before she flushed and met his eyes, "you're um – fixed?"

Remus smiled easily. "Actually, I'm the only vampire made in the past two thousand years who has not been – fixed. Magnus was hardly concentrating when he made. He did not even talk to me, tell me how to survive, let alone mutilate parts of my anatomy. I'm pretty sure Alexander realised this sooner or later, but he could not do anything after I had been Born into Darkness, as we vampires' call it."

"Accurate term," James muttered.

"Thank you," Remus replied, "now let me get on with the story. I'm not going to describe all the things I learnt, the ritual starvations which were a month long, or the way to drain the blood without leaving a mark, etcetera; these things are significant to vampires only. Besides, dawn is about an hour or two away.

"The first few weeks passed without incident; there was nothing much to do except feed off the nearby villages, and discover more about our past from Alexander. Then, one day, Katherine came to talk to me, which was pretty strange, as I was generally left alone, probably because I made no attempt to be friendly with anyone, and stayed inside my rooms at all times when I was not feeding.

"She came into my room, and I looked at her properly for the first time. I had only seen her at the first day of the feast, and her face had been bloodstained, and a hefty villager was thrown across her lap, obscuring her body. I had noticed her face of course, her brown hair and eyes, but I had not noticed the rest of her body. Oh, don't look so disgusted, Madeline, I'm not a chauvinist pig; I'm a vampire.

"I had thought she was merely a very short person, but when I saw her standing in my doorway, I saw that she was merely ten or eleven years old; and tall for that age. A child vampire.

"She came into my room without asking, and plopped down next to me on my bed. Needless to say, I was surprised at this intrusion of privacy, but I did not say anything. It was she who spoke finally, after a minute or two of examining me.

" 'So you're the new vampire,' she said, giving me a very matter-of-fact look. I nodded.

" 'Are you always this silent?' she asked, eyes wide open and serious, in the manner of a child.

" 'I speak when I have to,' I replied.

" 'You must be very boring then,' she said. I did not reply, because I had figured out that she was testing me, although how, I did not know. The silence stretched out until I finally gave in and spoke.

" 'So you're the one called Katherine, right?' I asked, because I had nothing else to say, 'Who made you?'

" 'Piotrvich,' she replied. 'I was dying in a field, and he could not bear it. He's very emotional, you see, speaks about love to all his victims before he kills them, and speaks about love to the corpses afterwards. Falls in love with all his victims too.'

" 'So, when did he make you?' I asked her. I was pretty sure what she was testing me on now.

" 'It's coming around to my two hundredth birthday in a year or two,' she said, looking at me intently. What I said now would have a great impact on our future relationship.

" 'You come bouncing in here, ask me all these childish questions, and make empty-headed remarks. Instead of acting like a kid, why don't you act your age?' I asked. She beamed delightedly and clapped her hands.

" 'You and me are going to get along fine,' she said, hugging me, 'all the others treat me like a child. They don't realise that I've lived twice as long as a normal woman already. I'm smarter than most of them as well, but they don't pay any attention to that. I don't like any of them, especially Alexander. He doesn't talk disparagingly about me like Mikhail and Elizabeth, but he ignores my existence completely! That's so unfair, don't you think?'

"Startled by this assault, I could only nod my head. She grew serious then.

" 'It's not fun, Remus,' she said, looking at me like a woman, not a child, would, 'I'm trapped in this body, misjudged by others because of my appearance. Alexander I dislike, but I hate Elizabeth because she has a wonderful body, and she makes horrible comments about this,' she gestured at her shapeless chest and hips. 'Moira is very unthinking as well. Every evening, she puts me on her lap and strokes my hair like I am still ten years old.'

" 'Er, why are you telling me all this?' I asked because I myself would never open up like this to a stranger on the first meeting. She smiled at me, a calculated smile.

" 'You're new.' She replied, 'I just wanted you to know which way the land lies.' Then she stood up and walked out of the room while saying 'We'll have another talk sometime.'

"A few days later, Elizabeth approached me. She was, as Katherine had mentioned, possessed of an exceptionally good figure, although I had not noticed this earlier. I noticed it now, because she was wearing something that left her shoulders, arms and calves bare; as well as most of her bosom. It was unheard of in those times, and the old me would have been shocked, and in all probability aroused, although the new me just watched her expressionlessly.

" 'I was wondering,' she said, her purples eyes looking smokily at me, 'if you wanted a drink?'

"I knew what she meant. She wanted us to drink from each other, the vampire equivalent of making love. I thought it was strange for her to do that, because she was about three to five hundred years older than me, and consequently much more powerful. If we drank from each other, I would get a lot more power, though she would not. I accepted, however, because I wanted the power."

"Was she good-looking?" Jessica asked sourly.

"Divine," Remus replied, pretending not to notice Jessica's expression of disgust. "Anyway, so we drank from each other, and I actually felt my power increase by quite a lot. Then, as we lay in each others arms, I found out the reason she had wanted to drink my blood. When a vampire drinks, if he wants to, he can read the other persons' mind, delve through memories. When a person is being drunk from, he is vulnerable to an all out mind scan. This is what she had done to me, read my mind.

" 'So, lover,' she said to me, tracing the side of my cheek with a fingernail as we lay in her bed. 'Katherine has come to see you, has she?'

"I was pretty startled, as you can imagine, and I could do nothing except nod dumbly.

" 'And you thought of her as a woman?" she asked coolly, her other hand on my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but she closed it with her finger, shushing me. Realising that I was not to speak, I nodded.

" 'Who do you prefer, darling, her or me?' she asked, kissing me. My old self felt disgusted as it realised that this had been an attempt at garnering loyalty and allegiance. Some of this disgust rubbed off onto my new self, and the result was that I jerked off the bed. She looked at me innocently, demurely pulling the sheet over her breasts, although she would have walked naked in the streets if it suited her plans.

" 'Did I upset my darling?' she asked coolly.

" 'I'm not your darling,' I replied with as close to a snarl as my new self had ever come, 'and I'm not getting caught in the middle of you two. Have your battles, but leave me and the others out of it.' Saying that, I left her room.

"The next night, Katherine came to my room, her face all excited.

" 'You told that bitch off?' she asked gleefully. I looked at her without expression, noting how strange it was to hear someone who looked like a kid abuse.

" 'I told her to leave me alone, nothing else.' I replied. Katherine's enthusiasm didn't wane, however.

" 'Does that mean you're squarely on my side?' she asked, like a little child again.

" 'Katherine,' I said, walking up to her and taking her by the shoulders. I had to bend on one knee to look at her face, 'I'm not with her, or with you. I'm to be left alone, you understand?'

"Her lower lip quivered and she looked like she had been refused a favourite toy.

" 'But they all hate me!' she exclaimed, crying. Those were the first tears of blood I saw. 'You are the only one who understands me, and you don't care!'

" 'I have not cared about anything since I was Born to Darkness, Katherine,' I said, not too gently.

" 'Drink from me,' she said, her tone desperate, 'let me show you what I've gone through. I'm not as powerful as Elizabeth, but your power will increase.' I shook my head, and my old self was saddened at the desperation in her voice, but also a bit angry at the attempted bribery. When she saw me shake my head, she turned and ran out of the room sobbing.

"I stuck mostly to my rooms after that, and for about the next year or so I only left my rooms to hunt. I spent this time carving a gravestone for myself, an incredibly ornate wooden one, for no reason other than to convince myself I was dead. When you're immortal, you have a lot of time to do all these useless things like sitting in a room for a year.

"After that year, which was meant to be an adjustment period, Alexander began my training.

"On the first day after the end of my adjustment period, I was woken up a few minutes after sunset by a hand which grabbed my throat and pulled me out of the coffin. If a human had tried to touch me, I would have strangled him in my sleep, but this was a three thousand year old vampire.

"He held me, and I dangled, trying to pry his grip while frantically trying to escape the purple sky. In those early days I could not come out unless the sky was pitch-black, and as Alexander choked me, my skin started to smoke.

" 'You're weak, hatchling,' he said, referring to my age."

Remus broke off as he sensed a question.

"If you were a hatchling then, what are you now?" Madeline asked, then added, "And what other terms are there for a vampires age?"

"I'm a vampire Elder," Remus replied. "The actual naming depends on power, and every vampire has a different amount of power, but the age of a vampire can be taken approximately as proportional to the power. Therefore, a vampire less than ten years old is a hatchling. A vampire between ten to a hundred years old is a vampire fledgling. A vampire between a hundred to five hundred years old is simply called a vampire; because to live over a hundred years means that the will and ability to survive has been proven. A vampire between five hundred to a thousand years old is an Elder. Any vampire over a thousand years old is an Ancient, and there are only two that I know of still alive today; Alexander, and Francis. There aren't too many Elders around anymore either."

"But what about your creator, Magnus, what about the coven?" Madeline asked, her face reflecting a touching concern over even the deaths of mass murderers.

"Let me tell you my story as I intend, Madeline," Remus said, and waited for her nod before resuming his story for the umpteenth time.

"I was smoking from my shoulders and chest, and I think that was what made Alexander let go of me. However, he stopped me from trying to re-enter my coffin.

" 'It's training time, Hatchling,' he said, grabbing my collar and dragging me out of the castle. Mercifully, by the time we actually reached outside, near total darkness had descended, mainly due my grabbing any object I could hold onto to avoid being dragged out into the open.

"I was able to stand in a few moments, instead of crouching to hide from the last vestiges of the sun. Alexander brusquely tossed me a villager. I barely caught the man, a strapping big person, but I was strong enough to hold onto him, and stop him from escaping.

" 'Build your strength,' Alexander told me, striding about twenty paces away from me, 'you're going to need it.' Knowing that this did not bode well for me, I drank from the man, making sure I got all the blood I could, which was quite a lot, for the man was over six feet five inches tall, and had the girth of a horse. When I was done, about an hour later, Alexander fired a bright blue beam of energy which missed my head by a finger-length.

" 'Fight me, Hatchling.' He said, and a blue nimbus of energy seemed to surround him. 'Use the powers you yourself have.'

"I was in denial about the powers, and I never wanted to use them again, but there was no time to say all this as Alexander loosened another salvo on me, this time aiming for my heart. I barrel-rolled to the left to avoid it, faster than the flight of an arrow, but he was quicker, and hit me on my shoulder as I hit the ground. I got up and could only stare as a shot hit just below my crotch. Realising that Alexander was playing with me, I turned and ran.

"He shouted at me to come back and use my powers on him, but I knew I would have no chance even if I did use my hateful powers again. With this in mind, I ran toward the battlements. I stopped at the edge of the moat, twenty feet away from the sixty foot high stone walls. Alexander stepped closer and closer, as relaxed as if he were a puppy ambling besides his mother.

" 'If you don't use the power that got you into this, Remus,' he said, stopping not ten paces from me, 'I shall be forced to hurt you.'

"My response was to turn and jump, twenty feet across the moat, and ten feet high. I landed on the stone wall, twisting to face Alexander, and with my hands punched holes in the wall so I could stay suspended there. Alexander stepped to the edge of the moat and looked at me angrily. I began climbing up the wall by punching holes in it with my hands and feet. It was not something I had attempted before, and ordinarily I would have been a little proud of its success, but at the moment, all I could think of was getting away from Alexander.

" 'Damn it!' he shouted at me, 'use your Goddamned powers to save yourself! Crawling up the wall like some contemptible insect will not save you!' To demonstrate this, he blasted a hole some two or three inches above my shoulder and in panic I began to lose my precarious hand holds. It was then, out of sheer desperation, that I first consciously used my powers. I hardly noticed it then, because I had launched myself from the wall like a missile, straight at him, from a thirty foot height.

"Even he was too stunned by the stupidity of what I had done to move out of the way. I landed on top of him in a shoulder-tackle, and punched him five or six times before he pushed me off himself casually, contemptuously. I landed five feet away. He was about to hit me with his energy beam again when he looked at his hands, frowned for a moment, and then smiled.

" 'It seems you finally used your God given talents,' he said, showing me his palms. They were healing rapidly, but I could make out the burn marks, and in some places, flesh exposed where the skin had been burnt out. He said that the test was over, and as he helped me back to my rooms, he explained what I had done.

"Apparently I had charged his gloves as I punched him and he blocked with his hands, though I had not realised this, and neither had he. The gloves had exploded after a few seconds, just like the arrow I had used against the wolf, and just like the chain I had killed Belle with.

"When we reached my rooms, he congratulated me without too much enthusiasm, although it was clear that he viewed this as a beginning to whatever he had planned for me. After he left, I lay on my bed, recovering from the energy blast.

"This nightly routine continued for the next ten-twenty years. I don't remember the exact duration, but when it was over, Alexander declared I was not a hatchling anymore. During this time I had developed my powers to the extent where I could explode things from afar, though this gave me a headache and took at least two to three minutes to carry out. By hand, I could charge a two pound rock in a second, and could even control its exploding time, though to a very limited extent.

"As soon as Magnus heard that I was not a hatchling anymore, he set me a coming of age mission. A test, to be more accurate. This was one of his many schemes to get the attention of humans turned onto mutants. I was to go to the palace in Paris and terrorize the residents, killing anyone I chose save the king himself, and his heirs. Magnus also appointed two companions for me, to judge my performance, and with his usual preoccupation with himself and his plans, he appointed," Remus broke off as Madeline said the next words.

"Katherine and Elizabeth," she breathed without a hint of doubt. Remus nodded.

"I knew," he continued, "that at least one of them would not survive the time spent in France away from the restraining hand of Alexander, and that of Magnus as well. When they were told of the undertaking, Katherine emanated a hatred so deep even I could feel it, and Elizabeth spiked off a sense of disgust mingled with irritation and loathing.

"The trip to Paris was reasonably quiet, because Magnus, as coven master, could read the thoughts of his coven, and take steps to correct any resentment before it could flower fully. Even Magnus could not arrive at Paris in time to stop an all out fight however, and this was what the two women were counting on, consciously or not, I do not know.

"It was during the nights in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Paris that I learnt never to interfere between two women hell-bent on a fight; especially not when I was trying to make peace. I ended up slapped on two separate occasions, and even had a clay pot broken over my head at one point. After that I resigned myself to scaring the living daylights out of the king and his entourage, returning to our resting place usually to see everything in the house smashed to bits, and the women sitting glowering, as far away from each other as possible. We even had to shift twice in the month that we were in Paris, because of the suspicion of 'haunts' in the house – ghosts, in modern terminology, and daylight raids by our rather superstitious neighbours. The fact that all our exchanges took place in pitch darkness, with not even a solitary torch, usually convinced the people in the adjoining houses that the house we were in was haunted, and that the sounds were disembodied voices of lost souls."

Remus paused for a second, lost in memories from ages ago. For a minute, no one spoke, no one even moved except James, who stirred restlessly. And then Remus began speaking again, staring at nothing, his voice keyed low, his empathy creating a depressing effect on them all, perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously.

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Questions? Comments? I don't have a toll free number, but e-mail is the next best thing, so review away, and get ready for the final chapters of this fic.


	8. Breakdown Part II

**A slow update as this story winds down towards its end. . . **

**Nothing much to say here, but a thank-you again to everyone who read/ is reading this.**

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"On the last day I spent in Paris I returned home early, after causing the queen to faint and fall down a flight of stairs, which cut my visit short as I could not harm the heirs. When I walked into the room, Katherine and Elizabeth were staring at each other. There was dead silence in the room, while on other occasions the noise had woken people four or five houses down the street. I knew instinctively that this was the serious quarrel, and that all the others had been mere warm-ups. Even torches were lit, which had not happened at all before.

" 'What's going on here?'; I asked, just to break the silence; because any fool could see what was going on.

" 'I'm going to kill her,' Katherine said, drawing herself to her full height of four and a half feet.

" 'And I'm going to laugh at the attempt, you trivial creature,' Elizabeth rejoined, smiling condescendingly. That was what did it, what broke the camel's back. With a cry Katherine jumped at Elizabeth, taking her by surprise and punching her squarely on her jaw.

"Elizabeth, however, was two hundred years older than her and was taller and stronger. She recovered instantly, slapping Katherine across the chest, sending her flying across the room. Katherine collapsed in a heap, a foot or two away from the fireplace. Then Elizabeth leapt at Katherine, aiming a kick with one foot fully extended and stiffened, a killing move. I could not have stopped it in time, and Katherine was lying there too stunned to move.

"As Elizabeth's foot reached Katherine however, she did something strange. She turned almost transparent, hollow. Elizabeth's face stiffened in shock as her foot went right through Katherine and into the fireplace behind her, crashing through the grating. She screamed and wrenched it free as Katherine scrambled away, still semi-solid.

"By now I was trying to stop the fight. As I ran between Elizabeth and Katherine, shouting at them to stop, Elizabeth jerked her head and I went flying, crashing upside down into the wall behind me and landing on the bed face down. I was pinned by some force, and unable to move, but I could see the fight.

"Elizabeth's leg was blackened to about halfway up the thigh, and her dress was on fire. She ripped it off and threw it in a corner." Remus paused again as James asked a question.

"Was she wearin' anythin'?" he asked with a smile bordering on a leer, which died instantly when he remembered he was talking to a vampire and his girlfriend was sitting next to him.

"No, James," Remus said, irritated, "she wasn't, and there was bouncing also. Go knock yourself out.

"So as I was saying, when she threw away her dress in a corner, it inflamed some rags already lying there, and that part of the room started to smoke, but I could not cry out, as my mouth was clamped shut as well. I doubt Elizabeth would have listened anyway; her leg was deadened by the fire and she was pretty much insane with the pain and rage. Her foot would probably take about five years or so to heal, unless she drank from an Ancient, and that was hardly likely to happen considering she was trying to kill a fellow coven member.

"Elizabeth was hitting Katherine with the same thing she had hit me with, and Katherine eventually solidified to hit back. They fought for about an hour or so, and James, in case you were wondering, Katherine's clothes got ripped off also; cotton in those days was hardly refined. Here, wait a second," Remus added, then implanted his memories of the night in James's head. James closed his eyes and leaned back in rapture, while Madeline frowned at Remus.

(That was not nice, Remus,) she thought angrily. (stop corrupting my boyfriend!)

(It's not like you could stop his playboy subscription, Madeline, and this is better anyway. He won't like the end in any case; maybe it'll encourage him to have sex instead of watching this stuff.) Remus responded. Out loud, he continued with the story, watching James's face blanch as he got to the end of the memory.

"After about an hour, Katherine was beginning to show signs of fatigue. Her body was wet with sweat, and she was tiring fast. Elizabeth was also sweating, but not nearly as much. Suddenly she got too close after a punch and didn't pull away in time and from some place Elizabeth pulled out a glowing knife and cut her open from her groin to her chest.

"There was so much blood then, but thankfully no organs spilled out, as a vampire has them slowly digested away before he becomes a hatchling. Katherine stood stock still for a second, than took a step towards Elizabeth, arm outstretched, before she collapsed silently on the floor, blood spreading rapidly. Elizabeth took a step backwards as Katherine reached out, and with her dead leg she inadvertently hit a wooden timber in the corner where she had tossed her dress. The rotting timber had been weakened by the flames, and it collapsed, bring the upper storey and roof crashing onto her. The hold on me was released as suddenly as it had come, and I leapt up and ran to Katherine's side.

"As I had feared, she was still alive, and in tremendous pain. I knew that nothing short of Alexander's blood could heal her, and she would die from blood loss in the next few days, every moment like a thousand needle points of pain. She was doomed, and we both knew it.

" 'Remus,' she said, her voice so low I could barely hear it, 'is the bitch dead?' I nodded so that she could die peacefully, though I had not checked, and doubted it.

" 'Then kill me, Remus,' she said simply, 'I cannot bear this pain.' While she had been speaking, I had been trying to use my powers to lift the blood up, and I had managed to hold about a litre in a floating ball. I showed it to her and she laughed weakly.

" 'That little amount won't ease my pain,' she said. 'Drink it. I wanted you to drink from me, remember? Now's your chance.' She watched until I had drunk it, then she leaned back, bending her head back and showing her throat. 'Kill me,' she said, and it seemed like a command from a queen, not the death bed ravings of someone who was in appearance a ten year old girl. Obediently I bent my head to her neck, and drank. Then, when she had passed out from blood loss, I took her little body and threw it into the fire. Then I turned to where Elizabeth lay, trapped under burning rubble.

"I got as much water as I could, and doused most of the flames, then I heaved the rocks away. Elizabeth was lying face down in the debris, and most of her lower back, as well as her buttocks were charred black. Blood ran from numerous cuts. The massive wooden beam had crushed the bones of her left arm, and therefore she had been pinioned under the wreckage, unable to move. I dragged her out and rested her head in my lap. Her belly and breast were smouldering and were charred almost black. The entire right side of her face had been burnt to a soot colour. She was badly injured, but not in mortal danger.

" 'So, lover,' she said, smiling wanly, and when she spoke, blood ran from her mouth. 'Want a drink?'

" 'Katherine's dead, but you can be saved,' I told her. She smiled a bit more broadly at that.

" 'Look at my face,' she said, her tone still flirtatious, but dead serious at the same time, 'look at my body. My leg is gone. Do you think I want to live?'

" 'Alexander can help you,' I said as gently as I could. She attempted a snort.

" 'Alexander would not heal me if the prize were all the power in the world,' she said, 'and neither will Magnus, and they are the only ones that can properly heal me. No, Remus, I have killed a vampire, a vampire from my own coven, and it will be the Sun for me.' suddenly she grabbed my collar and jerked my head downwards until our eyes were an inch apart. Her eyes shone defiantly purple from their blackened edges.

" 'But I won't give them the satisfaction,' she hissed. 'Kill me, kill me now. I won't be burnt anymore then I already am.'

"I was trying to pull away, muttering, I think, that she would be fine, that it would all be alright. She held me easily, even after having been in a fight and being burnt. For a couple of seconds she watched me struggle ineffectually against her hand, our faces inches apart. Then she let me draw back slightly, not relaxing her grip in the slightest, and with one long finger on her free hand, cut the place between her breasts, and jerked my face forward into the cut there."

Remus cut off as he saw the look on Jessica's face. It was a curious mixture of disgust, revulsion, anger, and even a smidgen of jealousy. For a moment he felt vaguely irritated that his face was not a quarter as expressive as hers, but what he said to her in a voice tinged with irritation and sarcasm was,

"Look, if you don't like this, I'm reciting the children's edition next week. You can come to that one if you like. This one is straight up front, uncensored. I'm not going to change it, I'm not going to make myself out to be a hero in the hope that you fall in love with me." Remus looked at her for a moment, then added under his breath, "again."

There was a minute of silence in which Jessica tried to meet Remus's glare, but eventually flushed red with annoyance and looked away.

"So Elizabeth had my head there," Remus said, continuing the story, "and I couldn't do anything but suck. Any vampire finds it hard to resist bodily contact with blood, and I was no exception. So I drained her until she was close to passing out, and then I stopped. I think I made to move away once more, but she held me by the back of the neck in an embrace, smiled, and kissed me lightly.

" 'Darling,' she murmured, then fell back, unconscious. I picked her up in my arms and did the same thing I had done with Katherine. In the time it had taken to drain both the women, the flames had grown hot enough to seriously bother me, even with the blood of two pretty powerful vampires in me. I exited through the first floor window, and had not left the street when the house collapsed, taking with it two very powerful vampires, or vampiresses, as you will.

"I left Paris immediately, and upon my arrival, a dark silence greeted me. When I went inside, I found the whole place trashed, and seemingly deserted. There was a fair sized hole in the ceiling, and ashes on the floor that scattered in the cool wind. I scoured all the rooms above ground – the rooms for us lesser vampires, not our leaders – and discovered that they were empty. As I went down the stairs to the lower rooms, where Alexander and Magnus lived, a figure emerged out of the darkness. It was Alexander. We stood there for a few seconds, I on the stairs, and he barely illuminated by a few torches from above, and standing mostly in my shadow and the shadows of the hall.

" 'Remus,' he said, and his voice seemed to be checked, as if he were trying to control it, and himself.

" 'Alexander,' I replied, not sure how to respond.

" 'Do you know what has happened in the past few days, Remus?' he asked, his voice still controlled. 'Do you know what has happened because of your inability to stop a catfight?'" Remus paused, looking at the others. "Um, that wasn't the word he used, of course, but I hope you realise I've been translating the whole of my story so far, from the Latin used in those days.

" 'No, Alexander,' I said, chary of the doom that seemed impending, 'I do not know, but I hope you realise that I would have gotten killed had I tried to intervene in the matter.'

" 'Perhaps it would have been better had you died,' he said, but without much conviction, 'because even your death would be preferable to what has happened.'

" 'Tell me,' I said, and he did. He told how Magnus, being coven leader, could sense the battle taking place. He told me how Magnus had felt the deaths of two of his coven, had sensed their hatred for each other, despite being members of the same species, and even of the same coven.

"He told me how this had angered Magnus, even more than it had saddened him, and he told me of how, after Magnus had announced the deaths to the rest of the coven, Piotrvich had thrown himself into the fire in the great hall. As Alexander told me this, I remembered that Katherine had said Piotrvich fell in love with all his victims. I figured that he loved Katherine, although it could have been the grief of Elizabeth's death as well. I hadn't known him too well, and I didn't pursue the matter too far.

"Alexander then told me that Mikhail had hauled his brother's barely moving, smouldering body from the fire, and insisted that Magnus give his brother blood to restore him. Magnus, in annoyance and anger, had refused him, saying that Piotrvich was dying due to his own foolishness. Mikhail had struck Magnus, demanding that Piotrvich be given blood, whereupon Magnus had swirled his hand, and all the blood in Mikhail's body had come bursting out. Magnus had made Mikhail's blood fly to where Piotrvich was lying, and splash upon him. Magnus had then told Mikhail's corpse that Piotrvich had indeed received blood. He had then flown off, bursting through the roof of the castle.

"When I had left for Paris, our coven had numbered nine. It was now five in number, if one counted Francis. Out of the four vampires barring Francis, there was Moira, who had vanished with Francis after Magnus had flown off; there was Alexander, who had stayed at the castle; there was Magnus, seemingly crazed at the loss in one day of about half his coven; and then there was me.

" 'What should I do now?' I asked Alexander after he had told me what had happened.

" 'Do what you will,' he said, dismissively, 'just don't go off and die. I have need of you yet.'

" 'What about you, then?' I asked. He waved a hand dismissively. 'I stay here. This is where the Last True Coven was formed, the last one that Nur formed. I will not leave this place. Ever.'

" 'Where do I go?' I asked, feeling a bit apprehensive at leaving the sanctuary of the coven, or what was left of it. 'What do I do? Am I still of the coven, can I leave it?'

" 'Go where you will, Remus,' Alexander replied, smiling slightly, 'do what you want. Go underground if you will. You're still part of the coven, but you can form your own, except that they will all have to swear Magnus as their leader when he calls you.'

" 'Calls me?' I asked, surprised.

" 'His silent voice,' Alexander replied. 'No matter where you are, if he calls you, you will hear it.'

"I turned to go, and he turned to walk back into his room. Then, I stopped, thinking of what he had said. I turned around, ready to call him, but his keen ears had already detected my pause, and he was standing, arms clasped, waiting for my question.

" 'This going underground business you mentioned,' I said, 'what is it?'

" 'Simply this,' he replied, 'that sometime during your immortal life, you will feel that you have done whatever you were meant to do in your life. You will have no will to live anymore. You may fancy watching a sunrise again. If you feel like this, then bury under the ground, bury deep, and close your eyes. You shall fall into a trance-like state, and you will be able to survive without blood indefinitely. It won't be much of a living, but if you do it, when next your parched lips taste blood again, you'll hunger for it, you'll gain all the fervour of a virile stallion. As a plus point, your power will increase tremendously if you do this. The longer you abstain from blood, the more your power will increase.' He paused a bit, and then cocked his head at me. 'Now, go, before Magnus comes and decides to kill you for not stopping the fight.'

"We exchanged terse goodbyes then, and I left the castle. It was to be a long time before I saw it again."

Remus shook his head, seemingly to clear the memories lodged there. "Just wait a second," he said, "Just give me a bit of a break, and then I can resume my narrative."

Without waiting for the others to nod an acceptance, he leaned back in his chair, touched his fingertips together in front of his face, gazed thoughtfully straight ahead at a blank spot, and lapsed into silence.

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**And the next update will be the last, the final chapter of this story. Please RR this, the penultimate chapter.**


	9. Sunrise

**At the start of this, the final chapter, I want to thank all of you who have read this story from the start to the finish, waiting patiently for the fairly erratic updates.**

**Apart from that, I'd like to thank all the people who reviewed, especially those who faithfully reviewed each chapter as it was posted. Every review, every comment and criticism was read and appreciated by me, (and my beta-er - though I forced him to read the reviews, so I don't think he really appreciated them) - and to think I nearly let this story stagnate on my PC (It was written in about three weeks in October 2003).**

**And now for the story; you've all waited long enough for this, the end of the Vampire Remus, and so, without any more delays, here it is:**

**Enjoy.**

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Alexander moved carefully around the dust, gazing contemptuously at his brother.

"Francis," he said, making a curt motion with his hand. "Wake up the Vampire Lord."

"I might raise your brother instead," Francis said, but Alexander waved his hand again in a curtailed sweep, indicating silence.

"Do you think I can't handle a vampire bloodless for around two thousand years? Do you think he can match me? Raise away, Francis. Let us see what happens."

"I can but try," said Francis, and he furrowed his brow, concentrating.

Alexander laughed humourlessly. "What is that line from that children's movie, Francis? Ah yes. 'Do, or do not. There is no try.'"

Nathaniel laughed and backed away theatrically, simulating an explosion with his hands. Alexander smiled thinly, but also took a step back as he saw the artefact glowing.

Suddenly, a blazing light filled the chamber.

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After a minute or two, Remus came out of his reverie and began again, smoothly picking up from where he had left.

"I headed around aimlessly, but roughly following the Seine and it was with no little surprise that, about a year later, I saw my first large body of water near the city now known as Le Havre, then a little village. It was the English Channel.

"Though all curiosity had been damped out in my new self, I knew I wanted to see what lay on the other side, and so I stowed away on a boat. It was really slow, as all boats were then, and by the time it docked at Brighton, the ship was devoid of rats, and a few of the other passengers felt light headed due to anaemia. I spent the trip locked up in my room, claiming a mysterious disease.

"England in those days was a gloomy country. It was lush, green and verdant, of course, but the sack by William of Hastings had reduced it to a state of despondent foreboding. I made my way to London, and it took me about another half-year to do so, as I was taking my own time and thoroughly terrorizing the people in the towns now known as Eastbourne, Dover and Canterbury. The distance was hardly fifty miles as the cow flies, but I took the scenic route along the coast.

"In London, I decided that I wanted an identity; that I wanted to be known. In a spit of mischief which was something my old self probably orchestrated, I spread rumours around town that one of the kings' chief Barons had had a son, who was afflicted by a mysterious malady that made him unable to stand the light of day. This son was to be me, of course."

James interrupted. "Weren't you a bit too old to be a newborn son?" he asked. Remus gave a wraith-like smile.

"I was immortal;" Remus said, "time meant nothing to me. For the next twenty years I lounged around the outskirts of London, never venturing too close to the palace in case my face should be seen and remembered. In this time, I learnt to play the violin and the flute, as well as practising jousting and sword fighting. After the twenty years, I carefully killed off the Baron and his family, and appeared on the scene as the sick son, who had survived the sickness befalling his family, perhaps because of his own illness.

"People's memories were refreshed, and I was chosen as the new Baron. I think most of the people plotting against my 'father' doubted I would last the year, and they left me alone. I would have killed them if they had tried to kill me, of course, but I much preferred eating without tasting poison in my food.

"Figuratively speaking, of course. I don't eat, as I hope to dear God you've realised. It would be most disconcerting if I finish my whole narrative to be greeted with three blank stares, and James saying; 'D-uh.. ..Vampire?'

"The period I spent as Baron lasted five years, and eventually I sickened of the endless political intrigues and petty backstabbing. I created a fire one night, and left the castle. It was assumed that the poor Baron was dead in the fire, and I was free to go. By this time, I was curious to see whether any vampires existed outside my coven. My coven had two members that had seen the Creator of all other vampires, and I wondered if any other covens could lay such a grand claim. London, even though a big city, had no vampires, but I was sure I would find vampires in big cities, not little fishing villages, and with this in mind, I made my way to Edinburgh.

"Edinburgh was a delightful little town then, although I didn't notice it as such. The streets were narrow and twisting, the men all smiling, ruddy-faced Scots, and the women broad-boned but still dainty.

"It took only a few days for me to pick the vernacular, the same way I had learnt English; we vampires are good at this sort of learning. After I had learnt the various idiosyncrasies of the Scottish language, I began to search for vampires.

"It did not take all that long, for these vampires were not taught by Ancients, as I was. Their methods were flawed; their kills were left in the streets. My coven had taught me to never leave a body where it could be discovered, and in Paris, and around it, we could feed without anyone being the wiser. In this Edinburgh, however, people locked their doors at night, and hordes of men armed with axes and blazing torches scoured any house without at least one torch providing light. No one was sure what a vampire was, but they referred to my brethren as 'haints' and the like, and knew us to be unnatural creatures.

"It was an easy matter for my eyes to see the light footmarks that a vampire leaves. I followed them as soon as I ascertained I was not being watched, because my running speed at that time could still be seen by humans. With some surprise I noticed that all three sets of footprints seemed to disappear, and reappear several hundred yards down the street. At every point where one of these sets of footprints appeared and disappeared, there a faint smell of sulphur. The other disappearing set had no such marks, except that right before they disappeared, a small marking came, such as that of clawed feet. The third set of footmarks disappeared at smaller intervals, and my eyes could see the pressure applied to each foot before the disappearance, indicating that the vampire jumped the distance. Each of the jumping vampire's footprints was accompanied by a stink so strong it boggled my mind as to why the humans did not pick it up and follow the vampires back to their lair.

"I followed the footprints, although this was no easy task because they disappeared so frequently. It was perhaps the only reason why these vampires, despite making so many blunders and careless mistakes, remained uncaught. Eventually, I found that they led to a fairly large and well kept house. Inside, I could see a portly old mortal roaming around with a candle in his hand. This surprised even me, as I could not conceive of a trio of vampires having a mortal vassal, and certainly not one so old. The vampires themselves were out feeding, and so I sneaked into the house through a window to wait.

"Upon examining the house I discovered a room with the door barred. I went outside, and around the back to the room. I could make out some children's toys, and a small bed. I studied the window to the room and noticed some scratch marks on it, caused by feet slipping over the sill. A human could not have left such deep marks, but a young vampire, unsure of his strength, could easily have done so. I opened the window – it gave was easily enough, indicating regular use – and I climbed in. A short search showed a trapdoor under the bed, which I opened up and went through.

"There was a small opening, barely tall enough for me to stand in. It led to a room which was situated under the garden, and was therefore cracked with seepage and made of earth. In the room were three coffins, a full length mirror, as well as a few personal effects, which I did not look at, for at that moment I heard voices. I crouched behind the mirror, and saw a quick glimpse of the three as they walked into the room before I whisked my head behind the mirror.

"One was a decrepit looking man who looked as though he bathed regularly in sewer water. The other two were blue skinned and yellow eyed. One was a woman with reddish hair, and the other was extremely thin, and had pointed ears. I had never seen human, mutant, or vampire such as those two before, and for a moment I wondered whether they were of Earth or not. When the blue man spoke, I became further convinced he was alien.

" 'Vat iz zis, muzzer?' he asked, and for a moment I had no idea that he was speaking English. 'Ze villayjers, zey weel zoon feynd us if yor ztinking ashociate zoes noth bathze zoon.'" Seeing the expression on Madeline's face, Remus added:

"I know you didn't get that, Madeline, so I'll say everything the blue man said in normal English from now on. The other two need no translation since they spoke normally anyway, even though the woman was his mother, as I found out later.

" 'Silence,' the woman said. She had a husky voice which made you stop and listen to her. The other man scratched some part of his anatomy. Thankfully, I wasn't seeing any of this, but my vampire hearing made sure I heard even that.

" 'We will not stay much longer here anyway, Kurt,' she continued, 'the old mayor is dying, and after his death, his house will be searched, and our hiding place will most likely be discovered. I have been thinking of going to London for a few years now.'

" 'Exxcellent idea, Raven,' said the second man, speaking for the first time, in a sibilant whisper. His tone made him seem fawning, toadying.

" 'Why can't we go back to Hamburg in the Holy Roman Empire, mother?' he asked, his tone indicating that he had made this point many times in the past, and was rebuffed each time.

Remus paused for a moment to stretch. "Just a little point of information: The Holy Roman Empire at that time comprised of most of Europe, barring France, and included pretty much what is now the whole of Germany and the states around it. Got that? Then let's continue.

" 'The Holy Roman Empire,' spat his mother bitterly, 'The Empire which hated you for the colour of your skin, the Empire that cast me out because I loved a normal man?'

" 'I still like it,' the blue man protested, 'and it's not like you loved father; you just wanted his money.' At this, the woman cursed like a sailor and began a long diatribe on how she was misunderstood by everybody. The smelly man nodded to her every word. After about fifteen minutes, I stood up, and walked out from behind the mirror, standing in front of them.

"They did not notice me as I stood next to the mirror and heard them argue.

"These were weak vampires; the mother was younger than I was, probably in her fifteenth year of Birth. The smelly man was about ten, and the woman's son was not more than a year or two old. A coven of hatchlings.

"I walked silently up to them, skirting the shadows of the small room, but they were only looking at each other. Among other things, Alexander had taught me never to lose sense of my surroundings no matter what I was doing. These vampires, though, had no inkling of ways to protect themselves. Clearly, they had not been taught. At that time, I guessed that someone like Magnus had Made the woman, and left her to fend on her own, and she had Made the other two as companions. I had no idea exactly how right I was.

"I said something to catch their attention, something like, 'How interesting, a coven of hatchlings,' or something as succinct, although I myself was barely past the fledgling stage. The three jerked their heads at me, and then they took completely unexpected counter-manoeuvres.

"The smelly one stuck out a tongue that nearly reached me, standing ten paces away. The woman transformed before my eyes into a wolf and jumped at me, and the blue simply disappeared, leaving a stench of sulphur. I was startled into inaction for a moment by these bizarre happenings, and then I dived onto a coffin.

"An attack as formidable as that should have succeeded, but failed completely due to the incompetence of these ingénues. Well, either that, or the speed with which I threw my self onto the coffin startled them excessively. Anyway, what transpired was that the man who had disappeared, appeared right where I had been standing the moment before, and the others man's tongue hit him in the small of his back. As he went flying, the wolf landed on the tongue. As the blue man crashed into the wall, I took out a small dagger I had with me, and charged it to a bright pink. Then I put the wolf into a half-nelson and with my free arm, put the dagger to its neck and commanded the others to stop.

"After the men had complied, I ordered them to stand on the wall facing the entrance, next to the mirror. Then, hoping it would understand me, I told the wolf to transform back into the woman. When it did so, I pushed the woman to the far side as well.

" 'All I want to do is talk,' I said. I received three angry stares in reply. I tried smiling in what I hoped was an uncaring, debonair sort of way. It didn't work, of course, because I was in my whole 'I-am-the-depression-turned-human' phase. Otherwise, that look, that smile goes naturally for me."

James snorted. Remus replied by flashing an uncaring, yet debonair smile, perfectly executed.

"It's been nearly a thousand years, James," he said, grinning, "I have had plenty of time to perfect it.

"Anyway, they stared at me for a few moments, when finally the woman asked me what I wanted.

" 'To teach you,' I said. 'To give you the ability to stand on your own feet, not flit about from town to town, hoping for drunken wanderers to drink from, so that you can live without the fear of waking in the midmorning with your coffins on fire by the angry mob standing in front of you."

"Why?" asked James, eyebrows slightly furrowed. "You were this emotionless sack of cells. What did you care what happened to three new, anonymous vampires?"

"Well, James," Remus replied, "I needed a coven, since I was unofficially cast out from mine own. And what better coven, than a coven of which I was the master? A coven mine to control, to affect, alter and shape as I saw fit? I was emotionless, James, not stupid. This was a perfect opportunity, and I grabbed it.

"I told them what I told you; that I wanted to be their coven leader, and they accepted it. I was the most powerful one of them anyway, and it was natural that a coven formed by us would have me as the leader. In the few days it took us to leave the town, I found out that the blue man – Kurt, was the son of the blue woman – Raven, and that the smelly man was Raven's friend. Apparently a vampire had come to Raven's bedside nearly seventeen years ago, and had bitten her. Instead of killing her, he had made her a vampire, and then left her to fend for herself without teaching her about the sun, or anything else. When Raven told me this, I was pretty sure I knew the vampire, because the same thing had happened with me, and the vampire who had made me was roaming the world at large.

"What you should know about Raven is that she had no scruples. None at all. Her friend, this Mortimer, used to visit her after she changed, thinking she was sick because she avoided the sun. But, as soon as she figured out how, Raven turned Mortimer into a vampire. Then, when her son was old enough, she turned him as well. To protect herself, you see, because three vampires are a lot safer than one.

"Anyway, we returned to London then, and stayed there for about twenty or so years. We were a coven of mutants, exclusively, and for another twenty years we painted London red. Then we moved to mainland Europe, settling near South-western Germany as Kurt had wanted to. We spent a few years there, a mortal lifetime, with nothing much of note happening, save that Kurt got involved with some cult who used to wear masks, and meet by firelight. It was very chic at that time, I suppose, to join these secret societies, although even now you Americans have this annoying habit of joining all these clubs and organizations for the heck of it. Anyway, Kurt became a 'priest' in the society before his mother put a stop to it.

"We moved on then, mainly to keep Kurt, still naïve after about a hundred years of existence, from joining any of these quasi-religious organizations. We made our way through Austria into Hungary and stopped there. Although we did not know it, our coven's lifetime was nearly at an end.

"We spent a few more years there, all of us drifting apart. Most of the time I used to spend entire weeks exploring the countryside, seeing how long I could stay without drinking blood, pushing myself every night. Why? Well, there was nothing else for me to do, I guess, apart from terrorizing the villagers, which would have led them to our little chalet with pitchforks and torches. I could have talked to the others, but Mortimer was a man no-one with working nostrils would approach, and Kurt was into some kind of religious reformation."

Remus paused, smiling.

"Religion for vampires?" he asked, "I never even dared to think about it, to wonder what God would say about us. But poor Kurt did, and he thought, and he thought, right up to the day he-

"I'm getting ahead of myself here. I was telling you that I did not speak much to the men. I did, however, talk quite a bit with Raven. I don't know what she got out of our conversations, but I learnt how she thought, I learnt duplicity, backstabbing, stealth, cunning, and oh yes, of course: style.

"Now don't get me wrong here, because I seem to be painting Raven a darker shade of blue than she really was. Granted, dishonesty and sneakiness were second nature to her, but she was also a good companion, and amazing in a fight. She was fun to talk to, with her witty cynicism, as long as you were not the butt of her jokes. She had a self-possession and mystique I have not yet seen in an another, and-"

Remus grimaced, and then gave an embarrassed little smile.

"Okay, I can't lie: Raven was more black then white. She would probably have abandoned Kurt he was a baby, if it had meant saving her own life. She had been using me from the beginning to try and get to the vampire who had created her. I did not know about this because I did not know how to read her mind, know her thoughts like a true coven master does. I was never taught these things; they are only passed on from the leader of a coven to his successor, or, if a successor is not chosen because the leader is not retiring, then to the most powerful vampire. This happens in troubled times, er, in case of a sudden demise on the part of the leader. In any case, I did not know how to read her mind, and our coven suffered because of it.

"I never was a good coven leader, and I freely admit it. I was much too self-involved, much too introspective, to function ideally as a leader. The only thing I did was teach them, nothing else. I was nothing to them, I did not act a friend who was helping them, nor as a brute who would drum perfection into their heads. They did not fear me. Well, it would probably be more accurate to say that they were not afraid of me. They knew – or came to realise – that I would not control them, or order them about in most situations.

"And surprisingly, it was Kurt who transgressed the boundary first."

Remus paused, cocking his head.

"The Sun is upon us," he said gravely, sweeping out of the chamber. "Come," he added peremptorily. The other three exchanged curious glances before standing up and following him. He led them to the balcony, and they all stood for a few moments, watching the magnificent view from his house, watching light blues piercing the dark night, watching the first streaks of pink and orange ember on the horizon across from them.

"I had hoped to tell you the whole of my story," Remus said, turning to the others. They all turned to look at him as well.

"I had hoped," he continued, turning to look at the sky, "and I admit it was a foolish hope, to want the Sun to stay set long enough that I could tell you the whole of my tale."

Remus paused, walking across the balcony to snag a bougainvillea flower from the plant creeping up the wall.

"There wasn't much to tell, just that the coven broke up after about a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred years, when both the men died." he said, walking back to them.

"Yeah, there wasn't much to tell; just that I returned to my coven then, older than Katherine had been when she died, that Magnus himself had not come back. That Magnus came back about fifty years later, insane, and attacked Alexander. That he injured me so severely that even Alexander's blood could not heal me completely, and that I went underground to heal my wounds. That I finally awoke in the late Renaissance period. That I went underground in England after two hundred years, because I could not bear the changes. That I came back to France in the First World War, and stayed here since.

"Yeah," he finished softly, looking at the horizon. "Not much to tell."

The sky was lightening rapidly. The mesh of orange, pink and purple had expanded, catching the clouds in whiffs of incandescence. Nearly the whole sky was light blue now.

"Now," Remus said, smiling as he first had in front of Jessica, in that hotel room. The smile made him look young, made him look human. "I going to answer the questions you've all wondered at some time in this narrative: Why did I tell you my history? Why did I not kill you all?" he paused and smiled. "Well, Madeline knows the answer, so technically I'm only asking you, James, and you, Jessica, the questions."

"The answer is not one you'd believe. Both of you." He said, and they noticed that his pale skin was smoking slightly, as the light on the horizon brightened. Sunrise was only heartbeats away.

If you had a heart, anyway.

Remus spoke slowly, but intensely, centring his eyes on Jessica, letting them caress her, the way his hands never would. "I love you, Jessica. I told you my story because I wanted you to know me, the real me. I did not want you to spend the rest of your life thinking that a vampire nearly killed you by seducing you. I wanted you to believe. Do you, Jessica? Do you believe me when I say I love you?"

For a heartbeat, they froze, looking at each other. Then slowly, she nodded. He smiled then.

"I want all of you to remember my story. I want you to understand me, the way you might have, had I been human. I want you all to know that I would never hurt any of you. Especially you, Jessica."

"What – what are you going to do?" asked Madeline, as she saw the first rays of the Sun pierce the atmosphere.

"In the ancient tradition of unrequited lovers, my dear," he said, flashing a smile that belied his words, "I am going to commit suicide."

Smiling, he jumped into the garden, and stood there, arms outstretched, sunning himself. Pale smoke arced lazily from his body as he heard Madeline scream and James' gasp.

Then, as he looked into Jessica's eyes, he sensed her love for him, the way only a vampire could.

Well, at least she loved him. Too bad nothing could ever happen between them.

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Francis lay slumped against the wall, feeling the dent he had made when he had been thrown into it. His head, having no cushion of strong Vampiric hair, was bleeding. Next to him lay Nathaniel, his throat torn open, and his face impossibly white. He had been drained of nearly all his blood in a few seconds by the Immortal Cyclops.

The Immortal Cyclops.

Francis's mind flashed back a few minutes.

He had nearly finished channelling his thoughts into the artefact, when he had felt a movement. Alexander saw it too, and motioned for him to stop. He did so, but the statue-like Cyclops, who was standing next to Nathaniel, suddenly came to life in what Francis suspected was a failsafe planted by Nur's consciousness to prevent his own awakening. The Immortal Cyclops, dry for so many years, still had enough strength to grab Nathaniel. Grab him, and drain him nearly dry.

His next move was to throw Francis out of the way with a simple backhand. Then he went after his brother.

As Francis watched, dazed, The Cyclops charged Alexander, and tackled him into the throne behind Nur. He punched Alexander once before Alexander kicked him off and stood up. They circled each other around Nur's body, Alexander warily, and The Cyclops aggressively. He called out Alexander's name, and the anger in the voice carried with it the rage of millennia.

Suddenly, however, The Cyclops paused, and tilted his head, as if listening to a call. He shook his head, shutting out the sound, and resumed his pacing after Alexander.

Then all of a sudden he leapt up, upon Nur's shoulder and swept down, catching Alexander completely unawares. They fought, and it was a fight such as one Francis had never seen before. The two Ancient's fought, grappling, lunging, and even snapping at each other with their canines. Although Alexander was stronger because The Cyclops had spent all those years in a tomb, Nathaniel's blood provided an impetus to The Cyclops's attack, an impetus augmented by his fury. Which was further augmented by drinking after all those years of starvation.

The fight took place in a whirlwind of frenetic punches and kicks, with the occasional break coming when one of the brother's stepped back and launched themselves at the other by kicking off the wall behind them. Alexander's face was smashed from one side, and he was being backed into a corner when The Cyclops stopped again, tilting his head and listening. Then, he looked up at the roof of the dome and blasted a hole through it, with his eye. Then he looked at Alexander, and blasted the beam again, downward, using its force to carry him up.

Nathaniel was nearly dead, Alexander seemed to be incinerated, and Francis was pretty sure that he was wedged so deep inside the wall that he wouldn't be able to get out.

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He felt the first twinges of annoyance seep into him.

Jessica watched in numbed shock as Remus started to smoke. By the time she recovered her wits, she could see strips of his skin wither into ashes. He waved to her languidly as she stretched her arm out to him in the garden below. Suddenly, what was left of his face contorted in shock and horror, as he screamed at them.

"James! Run, get them out of here right now! He's coming!"

"What?"

"The Cyclops is coming for Madeline! Run, get away from here!" screamed Remus, oblivious of the fact that almost all his skin had crumbled to ashes, and the sun was working on his muscles and organs now.

Even as James turned, grabbing Madeline's arm in one hand, and Jessica's arm in the other, a red beam shot through the sky, cleaving through the back of the mansion and coming crashing to a stop only feet away from them. A man dropped from the sky, landing from a hundred foot drop as easily as a human would from a two foot one, and stood there for a second, watching them.

Jessica could later only remember the next few moments as a series of flashes; like hurriedly snapped photographs.

The man was standing across the balcony in one moment. In the next, he was standing next to them. Then he was taking Madeline in his arms. Then James went sprawling across the balcony, hit by a red blast, seemingly from the man's face. There was a movement from the man as he launched into the sky carrying Madeline, and Jessica went flying.

"Madeline." She heard him say.

The force of what he did pitched her over the railing, and into the garden below. She landed across the remains of a fountain and heard a snap; she knew something was broken. Next to her was Remus, raw flesh showing, and smoke still rising from his body. He held out a hand towards her, croaking her name through his burnt mouth. As waves of pain shot through her, she whispered his.

"Remy."

As she saw him, she felt her eyes close. She was passing out under the pain. The last thing she saw as her vision dimmed was Remy's body. And as she faded into the blackness, he seemed to be glowing, but she couldn't be sure.

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**Well, that was it, and I hope you liked this final chapter.**

**Thanks again for reading the story, and although I think I wrapped it up pretty conclusively, if there are any remaining questions or comments, review, and you shall find out. Or, you can always add me on Author Alert (hint hint).**

**Thanks again, all. It was fun writing this story.**

**Ciao for now, hope you read my subsequent ones.**

**A.D.**

**xxx**


	10. Anyone For a Preview?

**Anyone for a sequel?**

**Just thought I'd preview a little of the next instalment of this story - I hope people are still interested, considering the long break I took between the end of the story, and this, the preview.**

**Well, I'm wrapping up the end of the second instalment these days, so as soon as I get it all together, you can expect updates. And maybe heavy sweaty ROMY action. . . hmm. . .**

**Now that's a thought.**

**The next part will be called 'Narratives II: The Immortal Cyclops' - although for convenience I'll just post it up here as 'The Immortal Cyclops'. I'm going to try to get it up by next month, so just please keep waiting a little longer.**

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**Okay, so here's the first K of words from the second Narratives, letting you know a little more about what happened to three of the main characters from the previous story.**

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**Enjoy.**

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**Preview One.**

I awoke to find myself in a dark room. There were no windows, and the only source of illumination came from a guttered candle, already flickering out. In the dimness, I made out a presence standing near me. A cry was about to escape my lips when the figure moved towards me and whispered my name. I knew him, and I felt a load lift off my shoulders; I was not alone in this place.

"Are you alright?" He asked in a low voice.

"Yes," I replied, because I was not hurt, although it felt like something horrible had happened to me before this.

"There's a door here," he whispered, clearly thinking that there were people listening in on our conversation. He could be paranoid like that sometimes.

"It's about half a foot thick, as far as I can make out; and the walls are thicker." He continued.

"A vampire holding cell." I said quietly.

"Yeah," he said, coming over to stand next to where I was sitting on the table with the candle.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him.

"Okay," he replied. "But are you sure you're alright? What happened to you there was pretty horrible."

"I'm fine now," I said, flexing my arms. They didn't hurt – too much. "How long have we been here?"

"Well, I woke up a couple of days ago here, so I have no way of telling. I don't even know if the person who put us here is still around, or if we've been abandoned."

"Great," I muttered. Then I looked up. "Wait, we can't be abandoned if someone's giving us food, can we?"

He didn't reply.

"Someone _is_ giving us food, right?" Panicking, I made to get up from the box I was lying on. Gently I was pushed down. He brushed a forelock off my forehead – the white one.

"James?" I asked, wanting him to assure me that it was all going to be fine.

"Rest. Conserve your energy. We'll see what happens."

It was then that I realised I was lying on a coffin.

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I've spent the last week with a vampire. He insists I will be the vector to his revenge, that I will lead him to the one who will run his enemies' blood through the streets. His words, not mine. He came sweeping out of the sky that morning, and took me with him. He hit my friends with some kind of power, and left them lying there. I still don't know if they're alright, or even alive. One of them was very dear to me, and I think I loved the other one.

This vampire has been nothing but civil to me since, but my mind is a woman's mind, and that means first impressions count a lot.

I'm planning to kill him.

Well, people who know me would probably attribute that to my red hair. They claim that it's as fiery as my temper. Which just goes to show you can't believe everything your friends tell you.

You're probably wondering why I'm so calm right now. You'd probably urge me to kick and claw my way out of this tangle, or break a few dishes in rage. Well, I've already broken dishes, and kicked and clawed. But nothing hurts this man. Monster, really. I've seen him put his fist through an oak door, and even through the wall. He melts rocks into slag with his beam thing, for target practice, I think. I can't really do much against that, even though I am a mutant.

Yes, a mutant. My name is Madeline Grey, and I'm a telepath with telekinetic powers. Cool, huh? Well, even though I _am_ pretty good at TK/TP, this vampire is going to smash me into the ground. Well, he'll probably feel sorry about it, but that doesn't mean he won't do it.

I was warned about him by another vampire, and I was told he was some lunatic vampire about 3,500 years old. Er, yeah. But the vampire who warned me seemed crazy, so I can't be sure. Well actually, he was pretty nice, for a vampire, and I want to believe him, but my mind just can't grasp the concept of a person being 3,500 years old. This vampire looks about 27-28. Apparently he um, 'did it' with some mortal woman named Jean, and had an 'abomination' with her – again, the vampires' words, not mine – which led to his being chained in the sun by his brother. He lost an eye, but somehow escaped. So did Jean and her son. He's only resurfaced now, after about 1,000 – 1,500 years in sleep somewhere, and he's claiming I'm an ancestor of Jeans' (and his!), and I'm going to help him get revenge. Okay, now that is pretty freaky when you break it down like that. It's a good thing I don't get hysterical.

I just realised I haven't even told you his name. Well, no-one knows his name, apart from his brother, who apparently is the only other vampire that old who's still alive. He's a legend among vampires' because he's the only one who escaped from the suns' rays. Even though they don't know his name. They do have a title for him though, and it refers to the fact that one of his eyes was burnt out completely when he was chained under the sun, and that the sun did not kill him.

The Immortal Cyclops. It's a pretty nice name, if you like calling yourself by some strange codename, like 'The Edge' from U2. He hasn't told me his name yet, and I'm not sure if he remembers it. Still, it would be nice to have a name to go with the face, even though he kidnapped me.

He is civil, as I mentioned before, though you won't know it to look at him. His eye, the one which was burnt out, has now grown back – vampiric power – but it has a coruscating red haze in front of it. I can't really explain, but his eye-beam comes out only from the other eye. Personally I think the haze blocks it from the previously burnt eye, but you'll have to get a doctor on it to be sure, and I'm no doctor. He looks so strange, with the haze in front of one eye, that face so pale because of 3,500 years of night, the jaw-length hair brushed back, and the long side burns connected to a goatee by a thin strip of hair on each side – a semi beard. My theory on his facial hair is that he was forcibly made a vampire when he was experimenting with a beard – you see, they're stuck the way they were at the moment they became vampires, and their hair and nails stop growing and stuff. No-one would be dumb enough to keep hair that way, unless they were a rock star or something. I hope.

Well, I've said all I can think off at the moment; and I'll be sure to keep you informed as events unfold.

I hope James is alright.

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**Questions? Comments? Reviews are welcome, of course, and thanks to all those who have reviewed already. It's Fuel, muse, drive.**

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**A.D.**


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